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COEfRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




GEOFFKEY CUAUCEE 



A SHORT HISTORY OF 

ENGLAND'S AND 

AMERICA'S LITERATURE 



EVA MARCH TAPPAN, Ph. D. 

Author of ^'A/i Elementary History of Our Country" ''American 

Hero Stories," ''Our European Ancestors" " England'' s Story " 

^^Old World Hero Stories" "llie Story of the Greek 

People" " The Story of the Koma^t People" etc. 




BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
{jtfte mitecisilie "^xtii Cambrilioe 



Revised Edition 






COPYRIGHT, 192 1, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

Copyright, 1905 and 1906, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
Copyright, 1920, by Houghton Mifflin Company 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

I 
TWENTIETH IMPRESSION, JUNE 1921 



/X^ 



SFP12 7 

ICIA622743 



PREFACE 

TO THE REVISED EDITION 

This book is based upon these convictions : — 

First : That the prime object of studying literature is 
to arouse the impulse to read the greatest English mas- 
terpieces. 

Second : That it is more important to understand the 
times during which an author wrote, and the reasons for 
his writing as he did, than to be familiar with a mere 
catalogue of names, titles, and dates. 

Third : That it is better to be well acquainted with a 
few authors and their works than to know many super- 
ficially. 

A Short History of England' s Literature, accordingly, 
constantly whets the appetite through quotation of fa- 
miliar and unforgettable lines from the English immor- 
tals ; it is written as a connected story with due regard 
to historical background and perspective ; it presents il- 
luminating biographical data and literary criticism; and 
while it surveys the entire field of English literature — 
from the times before Chaucer down through the end 
of the World War — it places its emphasis upon those 
authors who are the greatest of all. 

January, 192 1 



CONTENTS 

ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 

CHAPTER I 

Centuries V-XI 
THE EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD 

PAGB 

Our English ancestors — The scop — Growth of the epic — Beo- 
wulf; effect of Christianity on the poem — Form of early English 
poetry — Widsith — Dear's Lament — Exeter Book — Vercelli 
Book — Caedmon — Cynewulf ; runes ; Dream of the Rood — 
Early English poetry as a whole — Bede ; Ecclesiastical His- 
tory; his English writings — Alcuin — Danish invasions — 
Alfred the Great ; his translations; his language ; Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle — The kingdom at Alfred's death — Literature during 
the tenth and eleventh centuries — Cause of degeneracy — Ho- 
milies of ^Ifric — Re-writing of old poems — Other writings — 
Influence of the Celts — Difference between Celts and Teutons 
— Needs of English Hterature I 

CHAPTER II 

Centuries XII and XIII 
THE NORMAN-ENGLISH PERIOD 

Advantages of the Conquest — The Normans — Struggle between 
the two languages — The new English — New influences; Nor- 
man intellectual tastes ; opening of the universities ; crusades — 
Chronicles — Ormulum — Ancren Riwle — Four cycles of ro- 
mance — History of the Arthur cycle — The Chronicle ends — 
French romances ; King Horn — Lyrics — Robin Hood ballads 
■.— Value of the Norman-English writings ..,,... 25 



Vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER III 

Century XIV 
CHAUCER'S CENTURY 

Beginning of English thought — Feudal system — Changed condi 
tion of the peasants — Discontent with the church — Peasants' 
Revolt — " Sir John Mandeville " — Langland ; Piers Plow- 
man — Wyclif ; his translation of the Bible ; persecution — 
Chaucer; plan of Boccaccio and of Chaucer ; pilgrimages; Gz«- 
terbury Tales; Chaucer's style; his characters; his love of na- 
ture; his death; his influence on the language 35 

CHAPTER IV 

Century XV 

THE people's century 

The imitators of Chaucer ; James I ; The King's Quair — Sir 
Thomas Malory; Morte d' Arthur — Lack of good literature — 
Gain of the " common folk " — Ballads ; marks of a ballad ; com- 
position of the ballads — Mystery plays ; cycles ; seeming irrev- 
erence; comical scenes; tenderness; Moralities; Everyman — 
Introduction of printing; effect on price of books; effect on 
England — Foreign discoveries — Progress of the people 52 

CHAPTER V 

Century XVI 

Shakespeare's century 

Literary position of Italy — The Renaissance — Increased know- 
ledge of the Western Continent — Teachings of Copernicus — 
Henry VIII and the Renaissance — John Skelton ; PhyllyP 
sparrow ; influence of Skelton — Sir Thomas More; Utopia — 
religious questioning — Tyndale ; translation of the New Tes- 
tament — Separation of Church of England from Church of 
Rome — Death of More — Sir Thomas Wyatt — The Earl of 
Surrey ; the sonnet ; blank verse ; The ^neid — TotteFs Mis' 



CONTENTS vii 

( ellany — Masques — Interludes ; 77^1? Foure P's ; John Hey- 
wood — The first English comedy — The first English tragedy ; 
difference between them in form — Increasing strength of Eng- 
land — Literary boldness — Early Elizabethan drama — Need of 
form — John Lyly ; Ejiphues ; advantages of euphuism — Pas- 
torals — Edmund Spenser ; Shepherd'' s Calendar ; Spenser goes 
to Ireland — The pastoral fashion — Sir Philip Sidney ; Arcadia 

— The miscellanies — Later Elizabethan drama; songs in the 
dramas ; need of a standard verse — Christopher Marlowe ; Tam- 
burlaine; triumph of blank verse — Events from 1580 to 1590 — 
The Faerie Queene — Decade of the sonnet ; Astrophel and Stella 

— Richard Hooker ; Ecclesiastical Polity — William Shake- 
speare ; in Stratford; in London; his plays and poems before 
1600 68 



CHAPTER VI 

Century XVII 
PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 

Shakespeare's later plays ; sonnets ; his genius ; Shakespeare as a 
man — Sir Walter Raleigh ; his History of the World — Francis 
Bacon; Essays; public life; philosophy — King James version 
of the Bible — Ben Jonson ; Every Man in His Humour; the 
unities; Shakespeare and Ben Jonson ; Jonson's excellence ; his 
masques ; Oberon ; The Sad Shepherd ; the Tribe of Ben — 
Beaumont and Fletcher — The First Folio — Closing of the thea- 
tres — Decadence of the drama; causes thereof — Literature of 
the conflict — John Donne; conceits — John Milton; shorter 
poems ; pamphlets ; marriage ; Milton as Latin secretary ; De- 
fence of the English People ; sonnets ^George Herbert; The 
Temple — Richard Crashaw; Steps to the Altar — Henry 
Vaughan; Silex Scintillafis ; \ovt of nature — Thomas Fuller; 
Holy and Profane State ; The Worthies of England — Jeremy 
Taylor; Holy Living TinA Holy Dying — Richard Baxter; The 
Saints^ Everlasting Rest — " Cavalier Poets " — Thomas Carew 
— Sir John Suckling — Richard Lovelace — Robert Herrick ; 
Hesperides ; Noble Numbers — Izaak Walton; The Compleat 
Angler — The Restoration — Samuel Butler; Hudibras — Mil- 
ton's later work; Paradise Lost ; Paradise Regained ; Samson 



viii CONTENTS 

Agonistes — John Bunyan ; persecution; The Pilgrim^ s Progress 
— John Dryden ; the drama of the Restoration ; Dryden's plays ; 
his satire ; theological writings ; translations ; odes — Prose 
literature of the seventeenth century 103 



CHAPTER VII 

Century XVIH 
THE CENTURY OF PROSE 

CofTee drinking — Alexander Pope ; Essay on Criticism; The Rape 
of the Lock; translations; life; The Dunciad ; Essay on Man 

— Joseph Addison and Richard Steele; The Taller; The Spec- 
tator; Sir Roger de Cover ley; Cato; Addison's hymns — Jona- 
than Swift ; The Tale of a Tub; The Battle of the Books; A Mod- 
est Proposal; Gulliver'' s Travels; Swift's character — Daniel De- 
foe ; The Shortest IVay with Dissenters; result ; Essay on Pro- 
jects; Robinson Crtisoe; foiirnal of the Plague Year — The Age 
of Queen Anne — The novel — Samuel Richardson; Patnela — 
Henry Fielding; Joseph Andrews — Clarissa Harlowe — Tom 
Jones — Tobias Smollett ; Roderick Random — Laurence Sterne; 

Tristram Shandy; The Sentimental Journey — Samuel John- 
son ; the Dictionary ; patronage ; The Rambler; Rasselas; John- 
son's pension; James Boswell ; Johnson's conversation; bis 
Shakespeare; Journey to the Hebrides; Lives of the Poets — 
Oliver Goldsmith ; earlier works; The Vicar of Wakefield; The 
Traveller; The Good-Natured Man; The Deserted Village; She 
Stoops to Conquer — Edmund Burke ; On the Sublime and Beau- 
tiful; On Conciliatiojt with America; On the French Revolution 

— William Robertson; his work — David Hume; History of 
England — Edward Gibbon; Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire — New qualities in literature — Thomas Gray; "Gray's 
Elegy " — Percy's Reliques — William Cowper ; his hymns ; John 
Gilpin; The Task — Robert Burns; early work and models; 
first volume ; visit to Edinburgh; disappointment ; songs; Tam 
O'Shanter, The Cotter's Saturday Night 153 



CONTENTS IX 

CHAPTER VIII 

Century XIX 
THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 

The " Lake Poets " — William Wordsworth — S. T. Coleridge ; 
Lyrical Ballads; Rune of the Ancient Mariner — Robert 
Southey; his works — Coleridge's poetry; its incompleteness — 
Wordsworth's life; slow appreciation of his poems — Walter 
Scott ; boyhood ; early literary work ; Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
Border I Abbotsford; failure of publishers; the historical novel — 
Lord Byron ; Hours of Idleness; Etiglish Bards and Scotch 
Reviewers; Childe Harold; Byron's later life and poems ; two 
subjects that interested him ; attempts to aid the Greeks — 
Percy Bysshe Shelley; best poems; poetic qualities; death — 
John Keats ; Endyvnon and its reviews ; later poems ; Ode to a 
Grecian Urn — Charles Lamb; his friends; poems; play; Tales 
from Shakespeare ; Speci??iens of Dratnatic Poets, etc.; Essays 
of Elia ; freedom — Thomas De Quincey ; first literary work ; 
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater ; dependence; two of 
his best known essays ; his style ; Edinburgh Review — Quarterly 
Review — Blackwood'' s Magazine — Jane Austen; her novels; 
their excellence — 1832 a natural boundary — Charles Dickens ; 
early struggles; The Pickwick Papers; later work; qualities 
of his characters; method of caricature; hard work — W. M. 
Thackeray; slowness of general appreciation; Vanity Fair* 
Thackeray and Fielding; lectures; burlesques; best novels — 
Charlotte Bronte ; the psychological novel ; fane Eyre — Eliza- 
beth Cleghorn Gaskell ; Cranford — "George Eliot;" character 
of her first work ; first liction ; The Mill on the Floss; Silas Mar- 
ner ; character of her later books; her work contrasted v/ith 
Scott's ; her seriousness of purpose — G«eorge Meredith ; style 
difficult to grasp; Ordeal of Richard Feverel ; wrote to please 
himself — Thomas Hardy; architect by profession; early liter- 
ary work; Return of the Native; desire to prove a thesis; his 
last novel ; poetry — Robert Louis Stevenson ; story for the 
story's sake ; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ; essays ; verse — Rud- 
yard Kipling; newspaper work in India; early books; Kim; 
versatility; short stories ; poetry — T. B. Macaulay ; precocity; 



CONTENTS 

memory; first great essay ; in politics: Lays of Ancie7it Rovie ; 
History of En inland — Thomdi?, Carlyle; his indecision; failures; 
marriage; Sarior Resartiis ; History of the French Revolution; 
Heroes and Hero- Worship ; Frederick the Great ; fi n al honors — 
John Ruskin; Modern Painters; interest in workingmen; indus- 
trial ideas; poetical titles; style — Matthew Arnold-. The For- 
saken Merman; Greek restraint; prose criticism — Robert 
Browning; Miss Barrett and her poems; Browning's marriage; 
his dramas; Pippa Passes; Mrs. Browning's Aurora Leigh and 
Sonnets from the Portuguese ; Browning's later volumes; growth 
of his fame; how to enjoy Browning — Alfred Tennyson; early 
poems and their reception; recognition of his genius; The Prin- 
cess; In Metnoriam; as Laureate; The Idylls of the King; 
Enoch Arden ; dramas — The Age of the Pen — Progress of 
literature — novels — Irish themes — " new verse " — " vers 
libre" — war literature 197 



AMERICA'S LITERATURE 
CHAPTER I 

The Colonial Period 



English Literature in the 17th Century — Early American histories 

— William Bradford — John Winthrop— r^<? Bay Psahn Book 

— Michael Wiggles worth ; The Day of Doom — Anne Bradstreet : 
Several Poems — The New England Primer — Cotton Mather; 
Magnalia Oir/i//— Samuel Sewall— Jonathan Edwards; The 
Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will — Minor Writers: Roger 
Williams, John Eliot, Nathaniel Ward, William Bird, John 
Woolman — The Boston News Letter 271 



CHAPTER II 

The Revolutionary Period 

1765-181S 

Benjamin I'>anklin; his versatility; his literary aims: Poor Rich- 
ard's Almanac; A utobiography — The Revolutionary Orators: 



CONTENTS XI 

James Otis; Richard Henry Lee; Patrick Henry — Political 
Writers: Thomas Paine; Thomas Jefferson; the Declaration 
of Independence ; George Washington — The Federalist: Alex- 
ander Hamilton; John Jay; James Madison — "The Hartford 
Wits:" Timothy Dwight; Columbia; Tlie Conquest of Canaan ; 
John Trumbull; M'Fingal; Joel Barlow; The Colmnbiadj Hasty 
Pudding — Philip Freneau; Poems of iy86 — Charles Brockden 
Brown; Wieland; Arthur Meriiyn 285 



CHAPTER III 

The National Period — Earlier Years 



THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 

National progress — The Knickerbocker School — Washington 
Irving; Salmagundi; Knickerbocker's History of New York; 
The Sketch Book ; Bracebridge Hall ; Tales of a Traveller; Life 
of Columbus ; The Conquest of Granada; The Companions of 
Columbus ; The Alhambra; Life of Goldsmith; Life of Wash- 
ington — James Fenimore Cooper; Precaution ; The Spy; The 
Pilot; History of the United States Navy ; Cooper and the 
courts; Cooper's carelessness in writing; Mark Twain's criticism 
— William Cullen Bryant; The Embargo; Thanatopsis; To a 
Waterfowl; The Ages — Fitz-Greene Halleck — Joseph Rod- 
man Drake; The Croaker Papers; The Culprit Fay; The 
American Flag; Marco Bozzaris — Nathaniel Parker Willis; 
Pencillings by the Way ; Sacred I^ems 298 



CHAPTER IV 
The National Period — Earlier Years 

1815-186S 
THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS 

Transcendentalism; its influence upon literature — Ralph Waldo 
Emerson; enters the ministry; friendship with Carlyle; The 
American Scholar; literary style; how to enjoy Emerson; Em- 



11 CONTENTS 

erson's Poems — Henry David Thoreau; home at Walden 
Pond; A Week on the Concord and Merrunack Rivers ; Walden 
— Nathaniel Hawthorne; BroolcFarm; Hawthorne's early life; 
Tivice-Told Tales; Mosses frojn an Old Manse ; The Scarlet Let- 
ter; The House of the Seven Gables; The Wonder Book ; Blithe- 
dale Romance ; Life of Franklin Fierce; Tanglewood Tales ; 
The Marble Faun; Haw.thorne compared with other writers of 
fiction; Hawthorne's power 314 



CHAPTER V 

The National Period — Earlier Years 

18.5-1865 
THE ANTI-SLAVERY WRITERS 

The anti-slavery movement — John Greenleaf Whittier;. his first 
printed poem ; editorial work; Snow- Bound ; his ballads; love 
of children — Harriet Beecher Stowe ; Uncle Font's Cabin; cause 
of its large sale; The Minister's Wooing; The Fearl of Orfs 
Island; Oldtown Folks — Orators : William Lloyd Garrison; Ed- 
ward Everett ; Wendell Phillips ; Charles Sumner ; Rufus Choate ; 
Daniel Webster 329 

CHAPTER VI 

The National Period — Earlier Years 

1815-1865 
THE CAMBRIDGE POETS 

Similarity in the lives of the Cambridge Poets — Henry Wadsworth 
Longfellow; Hyperion; Voices of the Night; The Skeleton in 
Artnor; translations; literary style; Longfellow's sympathy — 
James Russell Lowell; The Vision of Sir Lautfal ; A Fable 
for Critics; The Bigloiv Papers; scope of his work — Oliver 
Wendell Holmes; Old Ironsides; Poems ; first contributor to 
the Atlantic; The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table ; Elsie Ven- 
«fr/ occasional verse; Holmes's charm 339 



CONTENTS Xlll 

CHAPTER VII 

The National Period — Earlier Years 

1815-1865 

THE HISTORIANS 

Historical Writing — Jared Sparks — George Bancroft; History 
of the United States J founding of the Naval Academy — William 
Hickling Prescott; The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and 
Isabella; The Conquest of Mexico; The Conquest of Peru; The 
History of the Reign of Philip the Second — John Lothrop Mot- 
ley; The Rise of the Dutch Republic j The United Netherlands; 
The Life and Death of fohn Barneveld — Francis Parkman ; 
The Oregon Trail; literary style; his plan completed — Hig- 
ginson's summary of these historians — Minor writers: John 
Gorham Palfrey; Jeremy Belknap; Richard Hildreth; Edwin 
Percy Whipple; Richard Henry Dana; Donald Grant Mitchell; 
George William Curtis — Webster's Dictionary and Spelling 
Book — conscientious tone of New England literature 352 

CHAPTER VIII 

The National Period — Earlier Years 

1S15-1865 

THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 

Why there was little writing in the South — Henry Clay — Patrick 
Henry — Robert Young Hayne — John Caldwell Calhoun — 
William Wirt — William Gilmore Simms; The Yemassee — 
Paul Hamilton Hayne — Henry Timrod — Edgar Allan Poe; his 
critical powers; the Tales; The Fall of the Hotise of Usher; 
Poe's poetry — Sidney Lanier; prose; poetry 363 

CHAPTER IX 
The National Period — Later Years 

1865- 

Present literary activity — Fiction: William Dean Howells; Henry 
James; Marion Crawford ; Edward Everett Hale; Frank Stock- 



XIV CONTENTS 

ton; George VV. Cable; Richard Johnston; John Esten Cooke; 
Thomas Nelson Page; Joel Chandler Harris; Mary N. Murfree; 
James Lane Allen ; Edward Eggleston; J. T. Trowbridge; Mary 
Wilkins Freeman; Sarah Orne Jewett ; Alice Brown; Elizabeth 
Stuart Phelps Ward; Rose Terry Cooke; Kate Douglas Wiggin 
Riggs; Helen Hunt Jackson; Mary Hallock Foote; Frances 
Hodgson Burnett — The Short Story — Poetry : Bayard Taylor; 
Vu'ws Afoot ; Poems of the Orient; Bedouin Song ; Home Pas- 
torals; Faust— Kxchdixd Henry Stoddard— Edmund Clarence 
Stedman — Thomas Bailey Aldrich ; Baby Bell ; Marjorie Daw 
— Francis Bret Harte ; Condensed Novels j The Luck of Roaring 
Camp — Walt Whitman ; O Captain .' My Captain ! j Leaves of 
Grass — Minor poets : Celia Thaxter ; Lucy Larcom ; John Hay ; 
Jones Very; Edward Rowland Sill; Richard Watson Gilder — 
Humorous writings: Charles Dudley Warner; Charles Farrar 
Browne; Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber; David Ross Locke; 
Henry Wheeler Shaw ; Samuel Langhorne Clemens ; Innocents 
Abroad ; The Personal Memoirs of foan of Arc; The Prince 
and the Pauper — History and Biography: John Fiske ; Henry 
Adams; James Schouler; Thomas Wentworth Higginson ; Jus- 
tin Winsor ; John Bach McMaster ; Hubert H. Bancroft ; James 
Parton; Horace E. Scudder — John Burroughs — The magazine 
article: Agnes Repplier; Samuel M. Crothers — American 
scholars: Charles Eliot Norton; Francis James Child; Francis 
Andrew March; Felix Emanuel Schelling; Cornelius Felton ; 
Howard Horace Furness — Juvenile literature: Jacob Abbott; 
Louisa M. Alcott ; Frances Hodgson Burnett — Young people's 
magazines — Literary progress of America in 300 years . 376 

REFERENCES 

England's Literature 403 

America's Literature 41 1 

INDEX 415 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGP 

GEOFFHi^y Chaucer. From the National Portrait Gallery. 

Painter unknown Frontispiece 

Portion of the First Page of Beowulf. Folio i29r of 

MS. Cott. Vitellius A. XV in the British Museum .... 5 
The Ruins of Whitby Abbey. From a photograph . . 9 
Monk at Work on the Book of Kildare. From a MS. 

in the British Museum 13 

MEDiiEVAL Author at Work. From a MS. in the library 
at Soissons in Cutts's Scenes and Characters of the Middle 

Ages IS 

King Alfred. From an engraving by Vertue in Amiales 

rerum gestarum A if red! Magni by A?,s&rmsMQnQWQns,\s . 17 
Dedication of a Saxon Church. From a MS. in the li- 
brary at R 3uen used i n Knight's Popular History of England 20 
Sir Launcelot and a Hermit. From an illuminated MS. 

of 1316 copied in Cutts's Middle Ages 29 

A Band of Minstrels. From a fourteenth century MS. in 

Cutts's Middle Ages 33 

Sir John Mandeville on his Voyage to Palestine. 
From a MS. in the British Museum copied in Cutts's Mid- 
dle Ages 38 

John Wyclif. From the South Kensington National Por- 
traits 41 

The Prioress. From the Ellesmere MS 45 

The Wife of Bath. From the Harleian MS 46 

The Squire. From the Ellesmere MS 47 

The Parson. " " " " 48 

Chaucer. " " " " 49 

A Mystery Play at Coventry. From an old print . . 58 
A Scene from "Everyman." From a photograph of the 

reproduction given by the Ben Greet Company 61 

Caxton presented to Edward IV. From Strutt's Ec- 
clesiastical and Regal Aniiquities 63 



XVI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Earliest known Representation of a Printing-Press. 

From Blade's William Caxtott 65 

Sir Thomas More. From Holbein's Court of Henry VIII 72 
A Masquer. From John Nichol's Progress of James I . . "jS 
Edmund Spenser. From South Kensington National Por- 
traits 85 

Sir Philip Sidney 87 

The Red Cross Knight. From tlie third edition of the 

Faerie Queene, 1598 93 

Shakespeare's Birthplace at Stratford. From a pho- 
tograph 97 

William Shakespeare. From the Cha'ndos Portrait . . 99 
Ben Jonson. From a painting by Gerard Honthorst . . .111 
John Milton. From a crayon drawing at Bayfordbury . .119 
Printing Office of 161 9. From the title-page of a book 

printed by William Jones in 161 9 123 

George Herbert 125 

John Bunyan. After a drawing from life in the British 

Museum 143 

John Dryden 147 

Alexander Pope. From a portrait by Richardson . . .154 

Joseph Addison 159 

Jonathan Swift 165 

Daniel Defoe 169 

Samuel Richardson 172 

Samuel Johnson. After Sir Joshua Reynolds 175 

Oliver Goldsmith 181 

Robert Burns. From the painting by Alexander Nasmyth 

in the National Portrait Gallery 191 

William Wordsworth. From an engraving by F. T. 

Stuart 197 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 201 

Sir Walter Scott in 1820. From the Chantry Bust . . 204 

John Keats 212 

Charles Lamb . • 215 

Thomas De Quincey 219 

Charles Dickens. After a crayon drawing by Sol Eytinge, 

Jr 224 

William Makepeace Thackeray 227 

Robert Louis Stevenson 235 

Rudyard Kipling 238 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xvii 

Lord Macaulay . 240 

Robert Browning 250 



Lord Tennyson 



553 



Cardinal Newman at 44 259 

Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. From a photograph 263 

The Chief American Poets 269 

The Title-Page of Anne Bradstreet's Book of Poems 275 
The Alphabet in the New England Primer .... 277 

Jonathan Edwards 281 

Benjamin Franklin . , 286 

Patrick Henry making his Tarquin and C^sar Speech 289 

The Authors of the Federalist . . .291 

Washington Irving 299 

sunnyside .■ 303 

James Fenimore Cooper 304 

Three Transcendentalists 315 

Henry David Thoreau 319 

Thoreau's House at Walden 322 

Nathaniel Hawthorne 323 

The Kitchen of Snowbound 332 

A Group of American Orators 335 

Cambridge in 1824 339 

Craigie House 342 

Elmwood 344 

The Autocrat leaving his Boston Home for a Morn- 
ing Walk 348 

John Lothrop Motley 356 

Francis Parkman 358 

William Wirt 363 

William Gilmore Simms 365 

A Group of American Women Writers 379 

The Portrait of Helen Hunt Jackson is reproduced by the courtesy of Little, 
Brawn and Compajty. 

John Burroughs 397 

MAP 

Places mentioned in English Literary History (indexed 
double-page colored map) Facing i 



SIGNIFICANT DATES IN ENGLISH LITER- 
ATURE 

680. Death of Caedmon, 
735. Death of Bede. 
901. Death of Alfred. 
1066. Norman Conquest. 

1 1 54. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tnd^?,; death of Geoffrey of 
Monmouth. 
1205-25. Layamon's Brut, the Ormulum, the Ancren Riwle. 
1346. Battle of Crdcy. 

1362. Piers Plowman. English becomes the official lan- 
guage of the courts. 
1380. Wyclif's translation of the Bible. 
1400. Death of Chaucer. 

1453. Capture of Constantinople by the Turks. 
1470. Malory's Morte d\4rthnr. 
T476. Printing introduced into i:!ngland, 
1525. Tyndale's translation of the New Testament. 
Before 1547. Blank verse introduced by Surrey, the Sonnet and 
Italian attention to form introduced by Surrey and 
Wyatt. 
1552 or 53 (?). Ralph Roister Doister, the first English comedy. 
1564. Birth of Shakespeare. 
1579. Eiiphues ; The Shepherd^ s Calendar. 
1587-93. Marlowe shows the power of blank verse. 
1590. Arcadia; Books l-iii of the Faerie Queene. 
1590-1600. Decade of the Sonnet. 

1594. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity., Books i-iv. 
161 1. " King James version " of the Bible. 

1616. Death of Shakespeare. 

1623. First Folio. 
1632-38. Milton's V Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus, and Ly- 
cidas. 
1642. Closing of the theatres. 
1660. The Restoration. 
1662. Hudibras. 



SIGNIFICANT DATES XIX 

1667. Paradise Lost. 

1678. The Pilgrim'' s Progress. 

1700. Death of Dryden. 

1709-n. The Tatler. 

1 7 1 1 -1 3. The Spectator. 

1740. Pamela, the first English novel. 

1751. Gray's Elegy. 

1765. Percy's Reliques. 

1798. Lyrical Ballads, by Wordsworth and Coleridge. 

1802-17. Reviews established. 

181 1. ]a.nQ. A-ViSt&n's Sense and Sensibility. 

1812. First part of Byron's Childe Har-old. 
1814. Scott's Waverley. 

1819-21. Best work of Keats and Shelley. 

1830. Tennyson's Poems, Chiefly Lyrical. 

1836-37. Dickens's Pickzvick Papers. 

1843. First volume of Ruskin's Modern Painters. 

1848. First volume of Macaulay's History of England. 

1857. " George Eliot's" first fiction. 

1868-69. Browning's The Ring and the Book. 

SIGNIFICANT DATES IN AMERICAN LITER- 
ATURE 

1640. The Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in 
America. 

1650. Anne Bradstreet's poems, the best American verse 
of the seventeenth century. 

1704. 77/^ j5(?i-/£'«A^^wi'Z^//d?r, the first American newspaper. 

1754. Edwards's Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will, the 
first great American metaphysical book. 

1786. Freneau's poems, the best American poetry of the 
eighteenth century. 

1798. Brown's Wieland, the first American romance. 

181 7. Bryant's Thanatopsis, the first great American poem. 

1819. Irving's Sketch Book, the first American book to win 
European fame. 

1821. Cooper's Spy, the first important American novel. 

1837. Emerson's American Scholar, "our intellectual Dec- 
laration of Independence." 



A SHORT HISTORY 
OF ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 



CHAPTER I 

CENTURIES V-XI 

EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD 

I. Poetry 
i. Our English ancestors. About fifteen hundred 
years ago, our English ancestors were living in Jutland 
and the northern part of what is now Germany. They 
were known as Saxons, Angles, and Jutes, all different 
tribes of Teutons. They were bold and daring, and de- 
lighted in dashing through the waves wherever the tem- 
pest might carry them, burning and plundering on what- 
ever coast they landed. If a man died fighting bravely 
in battle, they believed that the Valkyries bore him to 
the Valhalla of Odin and Thor, where the joys of fight- 
ing and feasting would never end. Yet these savage 
warriors loved music ; they were devoted to their homes 
and their families ; and, independent as they were, they 
would yield to any one whom they believed to be their 
rightful ruler. They were honest in their religion, and 
they thought seriously about the puzzling questions of 
life and death. They were sturdy in body and mind, 
the best of material to found a nation. About the mid- 
dle of the fifth century, they began to go in large num- 
bers to Britain, and there they remained, either slaying 



2 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [4th-5th Cent. 

or driving to the west and north the Celts who had pre- 
viously occupied the country. The Angles were one of 
the strongest Teutonic tribes, and gradually the island 
became known as the land of the Angles, then Angle- 
land, then England. 

However rough the Teutons might be, there was one 

person whom they never forgot to treat with special 

honor, and that was the "scop," the maker, 

escop. ^^ former. It was his noble office to chant 
the achievements of heroes at the feasts of which the 
Teutons were so fond. Imagine a rude hall with a 
raised platform at one end. A line of stone hearths with 
blazing fires runs down the room from door to door. 
Between the hearths and the side walls are places for 
the sleeping-benches of the warriors. In the fires great 
joints of meat are roasting, and on either side of the 
hearths are long, rude tables. On the walls are shields 
and breastplates and helmets, and coats of mail made 
of rings curiously fastened together. Here and there 
are clusters of spears standing against the wall. The 
burnished mail flashes back the blazing of the fires, and 
trembles with the heavy tread of the thegns, with their 
merriment and their laughter, for the battle or the 
voyage is over, and the time of feasting has come. On 
the platform is the table of the chief, and with him sit 
the women of his family, and any warriors to whom he 
wishes to show special honor. After the feasting and 
the drinking of mighty cups of "mead," gifts are pre- 
sented to those who have been bravest, sometimes by 
the chief, and sometimes — an even greater honor — by 
the wife of the chief herself. These gifts are horses, 
jewelled chains for the neck or golden bracelets for the 
arms, brightly polished swords, and coats of mail and 
helmets. The scop sits on the platform by the side 



5th-6th Cent] EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD 3 

of the chief. When the feasting is ended, he strikes 
a heavy chord on his harp and begins his song with 
" Hwaet ! " that is, " Lo ! " or " Listen ! " 

2. Growth of the epic. — Beowulf. These songs 
chanted by the scops were composed many years before 
they were written, and probably no two singers ever 
sang them exactly alike. One scop would sing some 
exploit of a hero ; another would sing it differently, and 
perhaps add a second exploit greater than the first, 
Little by little the poem grew longer. Little by little it 
became more united. The heroic deeds grew more and 
more marvellous, they became achievements that affected 
the welfare of a whole people ; the poem had a hero, a 
beginning, and an end. The simple tale of a single ad- 
venture had become an epic. After a while it was writ- 
ten ; and the manuscript of one of these epics has come 
down to us, though after passing through the perils of 

fire, and is now in the British Museum. It 

BoownU. 
is called Beowulf because it is the story of the 

exploits of a hero by that name. The scene is appar- 
ently laid in Denmark and southern Sweden, and it is 
probable that bits of the poem were chanted at feasts 
long before the Teutons set sail for the shores of Eng- 
land. The story of the poem is as follows : — 

Hrothgar, king of the Danes, built a more beautiful hail 
than men had ever heard of before. There he and his 
thegns enjoyed music and feasting, and divided the treasures 
that they had won in many a hard-fought battle. They were 
very happy together ; but down in the marshes by the ocean 
was a monster named Grendel, who envied them and hated 
them. One night, when the thegns were sleeping, he came 
up stealthily through the mists and the darkness and dragged 
away thirty of the men and devoured them. 

Night after night the slaughter went on, for Hrothgar was 



4 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [5th-6th Cent. 

feeble with age and none of his thegns were strong enough 
to take vengeance. At length the voung hero, Beowulf, heard 
of the monster, and offered to attack it. When night came, 
Grendel stalked up through the darkness, seized a warrior, 
and devoured him. He grasped another, but that other was 
Beowulf ; and then came a struggle, for the monster felt such 
a clutch as he had never known. No sword could harm 
Grendel. Whoever overcame him must win by the strength 
of his own right arm. Benches were torn from their places, 
and the very hall trembled with the contest. At last Grendel 
tore himself away and fled to the marshes, but he left his 
arm in the unyielding grasp of the hero. 

Then was there great rejoicing with Hrothgar and his 
thegns. A lordly feast was given to the champion ; horses 
and jewels and armor and weapons were presented to him, 
while scops sang of his glory. The joy was soon turned 
into sorrow, however, for on the following night, another 
monster, as horrible as the first, came into the hall. It was 
the mother of Grendel come to avenge her son, and she 
carried away one of Hrothgar's favorite liegemen. 

When Beowulf was told of this, he set out to punish the 
murderer. He followed the footprints of the fiend through 
the wood-paths, over the swamps, the cliffs, and the fens , and 
at last he came to a Drecipice overhanging water that was 
swarming with dragons and sea serpents. Deep down among 
^hem was the den of Grendel and his mother. Beowulf put 
jn his best armor and dived down among the horrible crea- 
tures, while his men kept an almost hopeless watch on the 
cliff above him. All day long he sank, down, down, until he 
came to the bottom of the sea. There was Grendel's mother, 
and she dragged him into her den. Then there was another 
terrible struggle, and as the blood ' burst up through the 
water, the companions of Beowulf were sad indeed, for they 
felt sure that they should never again see the face of their 
beloved leader. While they were gazing sorrowfully at the 
water, the hero appeared, bearing through the waves the 



5th-6th Cent] EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD 5 

head of Grendel. He had killed the mother and cut off the 
head from Grendel's body, which lay in the cavern, 

Beowulf's third exploit took place many years later, after 
he had ruled his people for fifty years. He heard of a vast 
treasure of gold and jewels hidden away in the earth, and 
although it was guarded by a fire-breathing dragon, he deter- 
mined to win it for his followers. There was a fearful 
encounter, and his thegns, all save one, proved to be cowards 
and deserted him. He won the victory, but the dragon had 
wounded him, and the poison of the wound soon ended his 
life. Then the thegns built up a pyre, hung with helmets 
and coats of mail ; and on it they burned the body of their 
dead leader. After this, they raised a mighty mound in his 
honor, and placed in it a store of rings and of jewels. 
Slowly the greatest among them rode around it, mourning for 
their leader and speaking words of love and praise, — 

Said he was mightiest of all the great world-kings, 

Mildest of rulers, most gentle in manner, 

Most kind to his liegemen, most eager for honor. 

This is the story of Beowulf as it has come down to us 
in a single ragged and smoke-stained manuscript. This 



TS 



p/ET n lARc: 

A PORTION OF THE FIRST PAGE OF THE BEOWULF MANUSCRIPT 

manuscript was probably written in the eighth or ninth 
century, and the poem must differ greatly from the 
original version, especially in its religious allusions. In 
earUer times, the Celts had learned the Christian faith 



6 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [5th-6th Cent. 

from the Irish ; but it was not preached to the Teutons 
Eflectoi in southern England until 597, when mission- 
ity'ont^' ^^i^s from Rome made their way to Kent. At 
poem. first they were allowed to preach on the little 

island of Thanet only and in the open air ; for the wary 
Teutons had no idea of hearing strange teachings under 
roofs where magic might easily overpower them. Soon, 
however, large numbers became earnest converts. Bits 
of the teachings of the missionaries were dropped into 
Beowulf. Instead of "Fate," the poets said "God;" 
Grendel is declared to be a descendant of Cain; and the 
scop interrupts his story of Grendel's envious hatred by 
singing of the days when God made the heavens and 
the earth ; the ceremonies at the burning of Beowulf 
are heathen, but the poem says that it was God, the 
true King of Victory, who led him to the fire-dragon's 
treasures. 

3. Form of early English poetry. Many words in 
Old English are like words in present use, but Old Eng- 
lish poetry was different in several respects from the 
poetry of to-day. The following lines from Beowulf are 
a good illustration : — 

Tha com of more under mist-hleothum 

Then came from the moor under the misty-hillside 

Grendel gongan, Codes yrre baer ; 

Grendel going, God's wrath he bore; 

mynte se man-scatha manna cynnes 

intended the deadly foe of men to the race 

sumne besyrwan in sele tham hean. 

some one to ensnare in hall that lofty. 

To-day we like to hear rhyme at the end of our lines ; 
our ancestors enjoyed not rhyme, but alliteration. In 
every line there were four accented syllables. The third, 



5th-6th Cent.] EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD f 

the "rime-giver," gave the keynote, for with whatever 
letter that began, one of the preceding accented syllables 
must begin and both might begin. The fourth never 
alliterated with the other three. In the first line quoted, 
the accented syllables are com, mor, mist, and hie. Mist 
is the rime-giver. In the second line, God is the rime- 
giver, while Gren, gon, and beer are the other accented 
syllables. The Teutons were very fond of compound 
words. Some of these words are simple and childlike, 
such as ban-hus (bone-house), body ; ban-loca (bone- 
locker), flesh. Some, especially those pertaining to the 
ocean, are poetical, such as mere-straet (sea-street), way 
over the sea ; yth-lida (wave-sailer) and famig-heals 
(foamy-necked), vessel. 

4. Other Old English poems. A number of shorter 
poems have come down to us from the Old English. 
Among them are two that are of special in- 
terest. One of these is Widsith (the far- 
wanderer), and this is probably our earliest English 
poem. It pictures the life of the scop, who roams about 
from one great chief to another, everywhere made wel- 
come, everywhere rewarded for his song by kindness 
and presents. The poem, ends : — 

Wandering thus, there roam over many a country 

The gleemen of heroes, mindful of songs for the chanting, 

Telling their needs, their heartfelt thankfulness speaking. 

Southward or northward, wherever they go, there is some one 

Who values their song and is liberal to them in his presents, 

One who before his retainers would gladly exalt 

His achievements, would show forth his honors. Till all this is 

vanished, 
Till life and light disappear, who of praise is deserving 
Has ever throughout tht wide earth a glory unchanging. 

The second of these songs is Deor s Lament. Deor is 



8 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [5th-6th Cent. 

in sorrow, for another scop has become his lord's favor- 
Deor's ^^^- ^^^ neglected singer comforts himself 
Lament. by recalling the troubles that others have met. 
Each stanza ends with the refrain, — 

That he endured ; this, too, can L 

Widsith and Deors Lament were found in a manu- 
script volume of poems collected and copied more than 
The Exeter eight hundred years ago. It is known as the 
Book. Exeter Book because it belongs to the cathe- 

dral at Exeter. Another volume, containing both poe- 
Thever- ^^J ^"^ prose, was discovered at the Monastery 
ceiuBook. of Vercelli in Italy. These two volumes and 
the manuscript of Beowulf cox\l2an almost all that is left 
to us of Anglo-Saxon poetry. 

5. Csedmon [d. 680]. The happy scop and the un- 
happy scop are both forgotten. No one knows who 
wrote either the rejoicing or the lament. The first 
English poet that we know by name is the monk Caed- 
mon, who died in 68o. The introduction of Christianity 
made great changes in the country, for though the sturdy 
tot Englishmen could not lay aside in one century. 
Christian- or two, or three, all their confidence in charms 
*^' and magic verses, and in runic letters cut into 

the posts of their doors and engraved on their swords 
and their battle-axes, yet they were honest believers in 
the God of whom they had learned. Churches and con- 
vents rose throughout the land, and one of these convents 
was the home of Caedmon. It was founded by Irish mis- 
sionaries, and was built at what is now called Whitby, on 
a lofty cliff overlooking the German Ocean. There men 
and women prayed and worked and sought to live lives of 
holiness. At one of their feasts the harp passed from 
one to another, that each might sing in turn. Caedmon 



7th Cent] EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD 9 

had not been educated as a monk, and therefore he had 
never learned to make songs. As the harp came near 
him, he was glad to slip out of the room with the excuse 
that he must care for the cattle. In the stable csdmon's 
he fell asleep ; and as he slept a vision appeared vision, 
to him and said, " Caedmon, sing some song to me." 
" I cannot sing," he replied, " and that is why I left the 
feasting." "But you shall sing," declared the vision. 




RUINS OF WHITBY ABBEY 



"Sing the beginning of created beings." Then Caed- 
mon sang. He sang of the power of the Creator, of his 
glory, and of how He made the heavens and the earth. 
In the morning he told the steward of the mysterious 
gift that had come to him while he slept, and the stew- 
ard led him joyfully to Hilda, the royal maiden who was 
their abbess. Many learned men came together, and 
Caedmon told them his dream and repeated his verses. 
Another subject was given him, and he made verses on 
that also. "It is the grace of God," said the council rev- 



lO ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [8th Cent. 

erently. The habit of a monk was put upon him, he was 
carefully taught the word of God, and as he learned, he 
composed poem after poem, following the Bible story 
from the creation to the coming of Christ, his resurrec- 
tion and his ascension. 

6. Cynewulf, born about 760. The name of one 
more poet, Cynewulf, is that of the greatest of the au- 
thors whose words have come down to us from the early 
days of England. He, too, was probably of Northum- 
bria, and he must have written about a century after the 
time of Csedmon. Hardly anything is known of him 
except his name ; but he interwove that in some of his 
poems in such a way that it could never be forgotten. 
For this purpose he made use of runes, the 
^"'"" earliest of the northern alphabets. Each rune 
represented not only a letter, but also the word of which 
it was the initial ; for instance : — 

C = Cene, the courageful warrior. 

Y =Yfel, wretched. 

N = Nyd, necessity. 

W=Wyn, joy. 

U = Ur, our. 

L = Lagu, water. 

F = Feoh, wealth. 

With these runes Cynewulf spelled out his name : — 

Then the Courage-hearted cowers when the King he hears 
Speak the words of wrath — Him the wielder of the heavens 
Speak to those who once on earth but obeyed him weakly, 
While as yet their Fearning pain, and their A^eed, most easily 
Comfort might discover. 

Gone is then the J^insomeness 
Of the earth's adornments ! What to l/s as men belonged 
Of the joys of life was locked, long ago in Zake-floods, 
All the Fee on earth.' 

1 Stopford Brooke's translation, in English Literature from the 
Beginning to the Norman Conquest. 



8th Cent.] EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD II 

Cynevvulf has many beautiful descriptions of nature, 
sometimes of nature calm and quiet and peaceful ; for 
instance: — 

When the winds are lulled and the weather is fair, 
When the sun shines bright, holy jewel of heaven, 
When the clouds are scattered, the waters subdued. 
When no stormwind is heard, and the candle of nature 
Shines warm from the south, giving light to the many. 

Cynevvulf loved tranquil days and peaceful scenes ; but 
if he wrote the riddles which are often thought to be 
his, he had not lost sympathy with the wild life of his 
ancestors on the stormy ocean. The English liked rid- 
dles, and this one must have been repeated over and 
over again at convent feasts and in halls at times of 
rejoicing : — 

Sometimes I come down from above and stir up the storm-waves ; 

The surges, gray as the flint-stone, I hurl on the sea-banks, 

The foaming waters I dash on the rock-wall. Gloomily 

Moves from the deep a mountain billow ; darkening. 

Onward it sweeps o'er the turbulent wild of the ocean. 

Another comes forth and, commingling, they meet at the mainland 

In high, towering ridges. Loud is the call from the vessel, 

Loud is the sailors' appeal ; but the rock-masses lofty 

Stand unmoved by the seafarers' cries or the waters. 

The answer to this is "The hurricane." 

An especially beautiful poem of Cynewulf's is called 
the Dream of the Rood. The cross appeared to the poet 
in a dream, — " the choicest dream," he calls it. The Dream 
It was "circled with light," it was glittering «>*«"»Rood. 
with gems and with gold, and around it stood the angels 
of God. From it there flowed forth a stream of blood ; 
and while the dreamer ga2ed in wonder, the cross spoke 
to him. It told him of the tree being cut from the edge 
of the forest and made into the cross. Then followed 
the story of the crucifixion, of the three crosses that 



12 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [yth-Sth Cent. 

Stood long on Calvary sorrowing, of the burial of the 
cross of Christ deep down in the earth, of its being 
found by servants of God, who adorned it with silver 
and with gold that it might bring healing to all who 
should pay it their reverence. 

7. Early English poetry as a -whole. Such was the 
Early English poetry, beginning with wild exploits of 
half-fabulous heroes and gradually changing under the 
touch of Christianity into paraphrases of the Bible story, 
into legends of saints, and accounts of heavenly vi- 
sions. It contains bold descriptions of sea and tempest, 
intermingling, as the years passed, with pictures of 
more quiet and peaceful scenes. The names of but two 
poets, Caedmon and Cynewulf, are known to us ; but 
throughout all these early poems there is an earnest- 
ness, an appealing sincerity, and an honest, childlike 
love of nature, that bring the writers very near to us, 
and make them no unworthy predecessors of the poets 
that have followed them. 

2. Prose 

8. Bede, 673-735. About the time of the death of 
Caedmon, a boy was born in Northumbria who was to 
write one of the most famous pieces of Early English 
prose. His name was Bede, or Baeda, and he is often 
called the Venerable Bede, venerable being the title 
next below that of saint. When he was a little child, 
he was taken to the convent of Jarrow, and there he 
remained all his life. A busy life it was. The many 
His educa- ^ours of prayer must be observed ; the land 
tton. must be cultivated ; guests must be enter- 
tained, no small interruption as the fame of the convent 
and of Bede himself increased. Moreover, this convent 
was a great school, to which some six hundred pupils, 



He found real plea- 



8th Cent] EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD 13 

not only from England but from various parts of Europe, 
came for instruction. 

Bede enjoyed it all. He was happy in his religious 
duties. He "always took delight," as he says, "in 
learning, teaching, and writing. 
sure in the outdoor work ; 
and, little as he tells us of his 
own life, he does not forget 
to say that he especially liked 
winnowing and threshing the 
grain and giving milk to the 
young lambs and calves. He 
was keenly alive to the affairs 
of the world, and though li- 
braries were his special de- 
light, he was as ready to talk 
with his stranger guests of 
distant kingdoms as of books. 
In the different monasteries 
of England there were collec- 
tions of valuable manuscripts, and Jarrow had one of 
the most famous of these collections. The abbot loved 
books, and from each one of his numerous journeys to 
Rome he returned with a rich store of volumes. 

Much of Bede's time must have been given to teach- 
ing, and yet, in the midst of all his varied occupations, 
this first English scholar found leisure to gg^g-g 
write an enormous amount. Forty-five different "writings, 
works he produced, and they were really a summary of 
the knowledge of his day. He wrote of grammar, rhet- 
oric, music, medicine ; he wrote lives of saints and com- 
mentaries on the Bible, — indeed, there is hardly a 
subject that he did not touch. He even wrote a vol- 
ume of poems, including a dainty little pastoral, resem« 




MONK AT WORK ON BOOK OF 
KILDARB 



14 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [8th Cent. 

bling the Latin pastorals, a contest of song between 
summer and winter, which closes with a pretty picture 
of the coming of springtime and the cuckoo. "When 
the cuckoo comes," he says, "the hills are covered with 
happy blossoms, the flocks find pasture, the meadows 
are full of repose, the spreading branches of the trees 
give shade to the weary, and the many-colored birds 
sing their joyful greeting to the sunshine." 

One day the king of Northumbria asked Bede to write 
a history of England, and the busy monk began the 
work as simply as if he were about to prepare a lesson 
for his pupils. He sent to Rome for copies of letters 
and reports written in the early days when the Romans 
ruled the land ; he borrowed from various convents their 
treasures of old manuscripts pertaining to the early 
times ; and he talked with men who had preserved the 
Bede'sEc- ^^icient traditions and legends. So it was that 
ciesiasticai Bede's Ecclesiastical History, the first history 
History. ^^ England, was written. When it was done, 
he sent it to the king, together with a sincere and dig- 
nified little preface, in which he asked for the prayers 
of whoever should read the book, — a much larger num- 
ber than the quiet monk expected. 

With the difficulty of collecting information, no one 
could expect Bede's work to be free from mistakes, al- 
though he was careful from whom his information came, 
and he often gives the name of his authority. Bede 
knew well how to tell a story, and the Ecclesiastical 
History, sober and grave as its title sounds, is full of 
tales of visions of angels, lights from heaven, myste- 
rious voices, and tempests that were stilled and fires that 
were quenched at the prayers of holy men. Here is 
the legend of Casdmon and his gift of song. Here, too, 
is the famous statement that there are no snakes in Ire- 



8th Cent.] EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD 15 

land. " Even if they are carried thither from Britain," 
says Bede, "as soon as the ship comes near the shore 
and the scent of the air reaches them, they die." 

All these books were written in Latin. That was the 
tongue of the church and of all scholars of the day. It 
was a universal language, and an educated man might 
be set down in any monastery in England or on the 
Continent, and feel perfectly at home in its book-room 
or in conversation with the monks. Bede was so thor- 
oughly English, however, in his love of nature, his 
frankness and earnestness, and his devotion to the peo- 
ple of his own land that, although he wrote in Latin, 
most of his works have a purely English atmosphere. 
He did not scorn his native tongue, and even in ^^^^, 
his writing he may have used it more than once, English 
though we know the name of one work only. '^^ °^^" 
This was a translation of the Gospel of St. John, and 
it was his last work. He 
knew that his life was near 
its close, but he felt that he 
must complete this trans- 
lation for his pupils. Some 
one of them was always 
with him to write as the 
teacher might feel able to 
dictate. The last day of 
his life came, and in the 
morning the pupil said, 
" Master, there is still one 
chapter wanting. Will it 
trouble you to be asked 
any more questions .? " 

"It is no trouble," answered Bede. "Take your pen 
and v«n-ite quickly." When evening had rome, the boy 




A MEDIEVAL AUTHOR AT WORK 



f6 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [Sth-pth Cent. 

said gently, " Dear Master, there is yet one sentence 
not written." "Write quickly," said Bede again. "The 
sentence is written," said the boy a few minutes later, 
" It is well," murmured Bede, and with new strength 
he joyfully chanted the Gloria; and so, in 735, he 
passed away, the first English scholar, scientist, and 
historian. 

9. Alcuin, 7357-804. In the very year of Bede'c 
death, if we may trust to tradition, Alcuin was born, the 
man who was to carry on English scholarship, though not 
on English soil. He was a monk of the convent of York, 
and was famous for his knowledge. Perhaps some of 
the English churchmen thought that he was too famous, 
when they knew that King Charlemagne had heard of 
his learning, and had persuaded him to leave his own 
country and come to France to teach the royal children 
and take charge of education in the Prankish kingdom. 
For fourteen years, from 782 to 796, he spent nearly all 
his time at the court of Charlemagne. Moreover, he 
persuaded many other men of York training to leave 
England and assist him in teaching the French. He 
little knew how grateful the English would be in later 
years that this had been done. 

10. Alfred the Great, 848-901. During those years 
of Alcuin's absence in France, there was dire trouble in 
Danish Northumbria. King after king was slain by 
Invasions, rebels ; and finally the Danes, coming from the 
shores of the Baltic, made their first attacks on the 
coasts of Northumbria. This was the beginning. Year 
after year the savage pirates fell upon the land. For 
more than three quarters of a century the Northum- 
brians were either fighting or dreading the coming of 
their heathen foes. At the end of that time, when 
peace was made with the terrible invaders. Northumbria 



9th Cent.] 



EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD 



17 



was a desert so far as literature was concerned. The 
Danes had struck especially at the monasteries because 
of the gold and silver vessels and ornaments that were 
collected in them ; and not one monastery remained 
standing in all the 
land from the Tyne 
to the Humber. Li- 
braries famous over 
Europe had been 
burned ; smoked 
and bloodstained 
ruins were alone 
left to show where 
men had been 
taught who had be- 
come the teachers 
of Europe. South 
of the Humber mat- 
ters were little bet- 
ter ; for there, too, 
the heathen Danes 
had swept through 

and through the country. Priests pronounced the words 
in their Latin mass books, but very few could under- 
stand the language and put a Latin letter into English. 
The only hope of England lay in her king. It was 
happy for her that her king was Alfred the Great, and 
that this sovereign who could fight battles of swords 
and spears was of equal courage and wisdom in _4ifred's 
the warfare against ignorance. In his child- character, 
hood he had visited Rome, perhaps spent several years 
in that city. He had paid a long visit at the Prankish 
court of Charlemagne's son. He had seen what know- 
ledge could do, and he meant that his own people should 




KING ALFRED 



l8 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [9th Cent. 

have a chance to learn. Then it was that France repaid 
England for the loan of Alcuin, for priests taught in 
the schools which he had founded were induced to 
cross the Channel and become the teachers of the Eng- 
lish. 

There were few English books, however, and there 
was no one to make them but this busy king; and just 
Aiired's ^^ simply as Bede had taken up his pen to write 
transia- a history of the land, so Alfred set to work to 
translate books for his kingdom. Among the 
books that he translated were two that must have been 
of special interest to the English, Bede's Ecclesiastical 
History and a combined history and geography of the 
world, written five hundred years before Alfred's day by 
a Spanish monk called Orosius. The latter had long 
been a favorite school-book in the convents ; but, natu- 
rally, a geography that was five hundred years old was in 
need of revision, and Alfred became not only a trans- 
lator but a reviser. He never forgot that he was writing 
for his people, and whenever he came to an expression 
that would not be clear to them, he either explained it, 
or omitted it altogether. Whenever he could correct a 
mistake of Orosius's, he did so. 

11. The language of Alfred's time. In one way Al- 
fred had not only his translations to make, but his very 
language to invent. Latin is a finished, exact, accurate 
language ; the English of the ninth century was rude, 
childish, and awkward, and it was no easy task to in- 
terpret the clean-cut wording of the Latin into the loose, 
clumsy English phrases. Nevertheless, Alfred had no 
thought of imitating the Latin construction. The fol- 
lowing is a literal translation of part of the preface to 
one of his books that he sent to Waerferth, bishop of 
Worcester : — 



9th Cent.] EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD I9 

Alfred the King bids to greet Waerferth the bishop with loving 
words and in friendly wise ; and I bid this be known to thee that 
it very often comes into my mind what wise men there were for- 
merly, both clergy and laymen ; and what blessed times there were 
then throughout England ; and how kings who had power over the 
nation in those days obeyed God and his ministers, and they both 
preserved peace, order, and authority at home and also increased 
their territory abroad ; and how they throve both in war and in 
wisdom ; and also the holy orders how zealous they were both in 
teaching and in learning, and in all the services that they ought 
to give to God ; and how people from abroad sought wisdom and 
teaching in this land ; and how we must now get them from with- 
out if we are to have them. 

Confused as this is, the king's earnestness shows in 
every word. He knows just what he means to say, and, 
language or no language, he contrives to say it, Bede's 
translation of the Gospel of Saint John disappeared 
centuries ago, and this preface of King Alfred's is the 
first bit of English prose that we possess. Literature 
had vanished from the north and was making its home 
in the south. 

12. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Another piece of 
literary and historical work we owe to Alfred, and that 
is the Anglo-Saxo7i Chronicle. In almost every con- 
vent the monks were accustomed to set down what 
seemed to them the most important events, such as the 
death of a king, an attack by the Danes, an unusually 
high tide, or an eclipse of the sun. One of these lists of 
events was kept in the convent at Winchester, Alfred's 
capital city, and the idea occurred to him of revising 
this table, adding to it from Bede's Ecclesiastical His- 
tory and other sources, and making it the beginning 
of a progressive history of his kingdom. It is possible 
that Alfred himself did this revising, and it can hardly 
be doubted that he wrote at least the accounts of some 
of his own battles with the Danes. 



20 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 



rioth Cent. 



13. Death of Alfred. In 901, it was written in the 
Chronicle, " This year died Alfred, the son of Ethel- 
wulf." King Alfred left England apparently on the way 
to literary progress, if not greatness. The kingdom was 
at peace ; the Danes of the north and the English of the 
south were under one king, and were, nominally at least, 
ruled by the same laws ; churches had arisen over the 
kingdom ; convents had been built and endowed ; schools 

vere ir creasing in 
number and in 
excellence ; books 
of practical worth 
had been trans- 
lated, probably 
more than have 
come down to us ; 
the people had 
been encouraged 
to learn the lan- 
guage of scholars, 
yet their own na- 
tive tongue had 
not been scorned, 
but rather raised to the rank of a literary language. 
There seemed every reason to expect national progress 
in all directions, and especially in matters intellectual. 

14. Literature during the 10th and 11th centuries. 
The contrary was the fact. For this there were two rea- 
sons : I. Alfred's rule was a one-man power. His sub- 
jects studied because the king required study. Learned 
men came to England because the king invited them and 
rewarded them. At Alfred's death a natural reaction 
set in. The strong will and the generous hand were 
gone, the watchful eye of the king was closed. 2. The 




DEDICATION OF A SAXON CHURCH 
From an old manuscript 



xoth-iith Cent.] EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD 21 

Danes renewed their attacks. It almost ceased to be a 
question of any moment whether England should ad- 
vance ; far more pressing was the question whether 
England should exist. The church was in a low state. 
The monks did not obey the rules of their orders, and 
many of the secular clergy were not only ignorant but 
openly wicked. About the middle of the tenth century, 
the monk Dunstan became abbot of Glastonbury, and 
he preached reforms so earnestly that both priests and 
people began to mend their ways. Moreover, the year 
looo was approaching, and there was a general feeling 
that in that year the world would come to an end. A nat- 
ural result of this feeling was that the church became 
more active, and that great numbers of lives of saints 
appeared, and sermons, or homilies, as they were called. 

These homilies were not so uninteresting as their 
name sounds. To hold the attention of the people, the 
preachers were forced to be picturesque, and 
they gave in minute detail most vivid descrip- 
tions of places, saints, and demons about which they 
knew absolutely nothing. The saints were pictured as 
of fair complexion, with light hair and blue eyes. Satan 
was described as having dark, shaggy hair ^jju^jg 
hanging down to his ankles. Sparks flew from 955?-io2o. 
his eyes and sulphurous flames from his mouth. The 
most famous writer of these homilies was ^Ifric, abbot 
of Ensham. 

In the first two centuries after Alfred, the old poems 
composed in the north were rewritten in the form in 
which they have come down to us, that is, in Re^^iting 
the language of the south, of the West Saxons; of old 
but little was produced that could be called ^"""'^" 
poetry. The Chronicle was continued, and one or two 
bold battle-songs were inserted. A few rude ballads were 



22 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [nth Cent. 

composed, with little of the old alliteration, and with only 
a beginning of appreciation of rhyme. One of these was 
the work of a king, Canute the Dane, who became ruler 
of England in loi 7 : — 

Merie sungen the munaches binnan Ely 
Canute's Tha Cnut ching reuther by : 

poem. u Rotheth cnites noer the land 

And here ye thes Munaches sasng." 

Joyously sang the monks in, Ely 
When Canute the king rowed by. 
•' Row, knights, nearer the land, 
And hear ye the song of the monks." 

Glancing back over the literature of England, we can 
see that it had been much affected by the influence of 
Influence oi ^^^ Celts. From the sixth century to the ninth 
the Celts. the Christian schools of Ireland were famous 
throughout Europe, and the Irish missionaries taught 
the religion of Christ to the Northumbrians. The 
Teutons and the Celts were not at all alike. The Teu- 
tons thought somewhat slowly. They were given to 
pondering on difficult subjects and trying to explain 
puzzling questions. The Celts thought and felt swiftly ; 
a word would make them smile, and a word would arouse 
their sympathy. The Teutons liked stories of brave 
chiefs who led their thegns in battle and shared with 
them the treasures that were won, of thegns who were 
faithful to their lord, and who at his death heaped up 
a great mound of earth to keep his name in lasting re- 
membrance. The Celts, too, were fond of stories, but 
stories that were full of bright and beautiful descriptions, 
of birds of brilliant coloring, of marvellous secrets, and 
of mysterious voices. They liked battle scenes wherein 
strange mists floated about the warriors and weird phan- 
toms were dimly seen in the gathering darkness. 



nth Cent.] EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD 23 

To say just when and where the Celtic influence 
touched English literature is not easy ; but, comparing 
the grave, stern resolution of Beowulf, with the imagi- 
native beauty, the graceful fancy, and the tender senti- 
ment of the Dream of the Rood, and the picturesque 
and witty descriptions of the homilies, one can but fee! 
that there is something in the literature of the English 
Teutons which did not come from themselves, and which 
can be accounted for in no other way than by their con- 
tact with the Celts. 

15. William the Norman conquers England. The be- 
ginnings of a noble literature had been made in England, 
but the inspiration had become scanty. The English 
writer needed not only to read something better than he 
had yet produced, but even more he needed to know 
a race to whom that " something better " was familiar. 
In 1066, an event occurred that brought him both men 
and models : William the Norman conquered England 
and became its king. 



Centuries V-XI 

THE EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD 
X. Poetry 2. Prose 

Beowulf. Bede. 

Widsith. Alfred. 

Deor'^s Lament. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 

C^dmon. Lives of saints and homilies. 
Cynewulf. 

SUMMARY 

I. Poetry 

Our English ancestors lived in Jutland and the northern 
part of what is now Germany. They were savage warriors, 
but loved song and poetry. After their feasts the scop, or 



24 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [5th-iith Cent. 

poet, sang of the adventures of some hero. Little by little 
these songs were welded together and became an epic. One 
epic, Beowulf, has been preserved, though much changed by 
the teachings of the missionaries who came to England in 
597. Anglo-Saxon verse was marked by alliteration instead of 
rhyme. 

Besides Beowulf, little remains of the Anglo-Saxon poetry 
except what is contained in the Exeter Book and the Vercelli 
Book. 

The first poet whom we know by name was the monk 
Cffidmon (seventh century), whose chief work was a paraphrase 
of the Scriptures. The greatest of the early poets was 
Cynewulf (eighth century). 

2. Prose 

One of the most famous pieces of English prose, a translation 
of the Gospel according to St. John, was written by the monk 
Bede (seventh and eighth centuries). He wrote on many sub- 
jects, but his most valuable work is his Ecclesiastical History. 

Alcuin (eighth century) carried on English scholarship in 
France. England was harassed by the Danes, but after King 
Alfred (ninth century) had brought about peace, Alcuin's 
pupils became teachers of the English. 

King Alfred made several valuable translations. The pre- 
face of one of them is the earliest piece of English prose that 
we still possess. The Anglo-Saxo?i Chronicle was formally 
begun in his reign. 

The death of Alfred and the renewed attacks of the Danes 
retarded the literary progress of England. The preaching of 
Dunstan and the near approach of the year 1000 called out 
lives of saints, and homilies written by yEIfric and others. 
Old poems were rewritten, and rude ballads were composed. 
The influence of the Celts for beauty, fancy, and wit may be 
seen in both poetry and prose. English literature had made 
a good beginning, but needed better models. 



CHAPTER II 

CENTURIES XII AND XHI 

THE NORMAN-ENGLISH PERIOD 

16. Advantages of the conquest. Nothing better 
could have happened to England than this Norman con- 
quest. The Englishmen of the eleventh century were 
courageous and persistent, but the spark of inspiration 
that gives a people the mastery of itself and the leader- 
ship of other nations was wanting. England was like 
a great vessel rolling in the trough of the sea, turning 
broadside to every wave. The country must fall into 
the hands of either the barbaric north or the civilized 
south. Happily for England, the victor was of the south. 

The Normans were Teutons, who had fallen upon 
France as their kinsmen had fallen upon England ; but 
the invaders of France had been thrown among ^jjg 
a race superior to them in manners, language, Normans, 
and literature. These northern pirates gave a look 
about them, and straightway they began to follow the 
customs of the people whom they had conquered. They 
embraced the Christian religion and built churches and 
monasteries as if they had been to the manner born. 
They forgot their own language and adopted that of 
France. They intermarried with the French ; and in a 
century and a half a new race had arisen with the brav- 
ery and energy of the Northmen and an aptitude for 
even more courtly manners and even wider literary cul- 
ture than the French themselves. 



20 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [i2th-i4th Cent. 

17. The struggle between the French and English 
languages. Such were the Norman conquerors of Eng- 
land. How would their coming affect the language and 
the literature of the subject country ? It was three hun- 
dred years before the question was fully answered. At 
first the Norman spoke French, the Englishman spoke 
English, and both nations used Latin in the church ser- 
vice. Little by little, the Norman found it convenient to 
know something of the language spoken by the masses of 
the people around him. Little by little, the Englishman 
acquired some knowledge of the language of his rulers. 
Words that were nearly alike in both tongues were con- 
fused in pronunciation, and as for spelling, — a man's 
mode of spelling was his private property, and he did 
with his own as he would. It is hard to trace the history 
of the two languages in England until we reach the 
fourteenth century, and then there are some few land- 
marks. In 1300, Oxford allowed people who had suits at 
law to plead in "any language generally understood." 
Fifty years later, English was taught to some extent in 
the schools. In 1362, it became the official language of 
the courts. In 1385, John of Trevisa wrote, " In all the 
grammar schools of England children give up French 
and construe and learn in English, and have thereby 
advantage on one side and disadvantage on another. 
Their advantage is that they learn their grammar in less 
time than children were wont to do ; the disadvantage 
is that now grammar-school children know no more 
French than their left heel knows." In 1400, the Earl 
of March offered his aid to the king and wrote his let- 
ter in English, making no further apology for using 
his native tongue than the somewhat independent one, 
" It is more clear to my understanding than Latin or 
French." 



I2th-i3th Cent.] THE NORMAN-ENGLISH PERIOD 27 

In this contest, three centuries long, English had come 
off victor, but it was a different English from that of 
earlier times. Hundreds of new nouns, verbs, me new 
and adjectives had entered it, but they had ^^^sUsii. 
been forced to wear the English garb. To speak broadly, 
verbs had adopted English endings ; adjectives had 
adopted English comparisons ; nouns had given up their 
case-endings and also their gender in great degree, for 
the simplest remedy for the frequent conflict between 
the English and French gender was to drop all distinc- 
tions of gender so far as inanimate objects were con- 
cerned. 

How did the coming of the Norman affect the litera- 
ture of England ? As soon as the shock of conquest was 
somewhat past, the English unconsciously began, in the 
old Teutonic fashion, to look about them and see what 
ways worthier than their own they could adopt. They 
had refused to become a French-speaking people, but was 
there anything in Norman literature and literary methods 
worthy of their imitation, or rather assimilation ? 

18. Opening of the universities and the crusades. 
The Normans had a taste for history, they were a reli- 
gious people, and they thoroughly enjoyed story-telling. 
Two other influences were brought to bear upon the 
English : the opening of the universities and the cru- 
sades. The first made it possible for a man to obtain 
an education even if he had no desire to become a priest. 
The second threw open the treasures of the world. 
Thousands set out on these expeditions to rescue the 
tomb of Christ from the power of the unbelievers. Those 
who returned brought with them a wealth of new ideas. 
They had seen new countries and new manners. They 
had learned to think new thoughts. 

The opening of the universities made it possible for 



28 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [13th Cent. 

chronicles to be written, not only by monks in the mon- 
asteries, but by men who lived in the midst of the 

events that they described. Chronicles were 

Chronicles. , i 1 i r n r 

no longer mere annals ; they became tull or 

detail, vivid, interesting. 

19. Devotional books. The religious energy of the 
Normans and the untiring zeal of the preachers strength- 
ened the English interest in religious matters. The 
sacred motive of the crusades intensified it, and books 
of devotion appeared, not in Latin, like the chronicles, 
but in simple, every-day English. One of the best known 
The of these was the Ornmhim, a book which gives 

Ormuium, ^ metrical paraphrase of the Gospels as used 
1215-1220. in the church service, each portion followed 
by a metrical sermon. Its author kept a sturdy hold 
upon his future fame in his couplet, — 

Thiss hoc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum 
Forrthi thatt Orm itt worhhte. 

He was equally determined that his lines should be pro- 
nounced properly, and so after every short vowel he 
doubled the consonant. He even gave advance orders 
to whoever should copy his work : — 

And whoso shall will to write this book again another time, I bid 
him that he write it correctly, so as this book teacheth him, en- 
tirely as it is upon this first pattern, with all such rhymes as here 
are set with just as many words, and that he look well' that he write 
a letter twice where it upon this book is written in that wise.' 

Another of these books of devotion was the Ancren 

Rizule, a little prose work whose author is un- 
TheAncTen , . . i , 

Riwie, known. Its object was to guide three sisters 
aTiouti22B. ^^^ wished to withdraw from the world, though 
without taking the vows of the convent. It is almost 
» Translated in Morley's English Writers, iii. 



r2th Cent.] THE NORMAN-ENGLISH PERIOD 29 

sternly strict, but so pure and natural and earnest that 
it was deeply loved and appreciated. 

20. Romances. The Norman delight in stories and 
the new ideas given by the crusades aroused in the Eng- 
lish a keen love of romance. The conquest itself was 
romantic. The chivalry introduced by the Normans was 




SIR LAUNCELOT AND A HERMT 
From an illuminated MS. of 13 16 



picturesque. It adorned the stern Saxon idea of duty 
with richness and grace. Simple old legends took form 
and beauty. Four great cycles of romance 
were produced ; that is, four groups of stories cycles of 
told in metre, each centred about some one "™^°®- 
hero. One was about Charlemagne, one about Alexan- 
der the Great, one told the tale of the fall of Troy, and 
one pictured King Arthur and his knights. This last 

cycle had a curious history. Before the middle „ „ 

■' ■' Qeoffreyof 

of the twelfth century, one Geoffrey of Mon- Monmoutii, 
mouth, a Welsh bishop, wrote in Latin an ex- mo-H54. 
ceedingly fanciful History of the Kings of Britain. It 



30 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [13th Cent. 

was translated into French by a clerk named Wace ; 
was carried to France ; wandered over the Continent, 
where it was smoothed and beautified, and gained the 
stories of Launcelot and the Holy Grail ; then returned 
to England, and was put into English verse by the 
English priest Layamon. He called it the 
Brut, about Brut, or story of Brutus, a fabled descendant 
^^°^" of vEneas, who was claimed to have landed on 

the shores of England in prehistoric times. This cycle 
was the special favorite of the English. The marvellous 
adventures of King Arthur's knights interested those 
who had been thrilled by the stories of returning cru- 
saders ; and the quest of the knights for but one glance 
of that Holy Thing, the Grail, was in full accord with the 
spirit of the crusades, an earthly journey with a spiritual 
gain as its object and reward. 

The Chronicle came to an end in 1 1 54. The Onnuhcm, 
the Ancroi Rhvle, and the Brut all belong to the early 
part of the thirteenth century. They are English in 
French their feeling ; but as the years passed, French 
romances, romances were sung throughout the land, — in 
French where French was understood, in English trans- 
lation elsewhere. One of the best liked of these was 
King Horn. Its story is : — 

The kingdom of Horn's father is invaded by the 
King Horn Saracens, who kill the father and put Horn 
proDabiy and his companions to sea. King Aylmar re- 
ceives them, and orders them to be taught 
various duties. Of Horn he says : — 

And tech him to harpe 
With his nayles fcharpe, 
Bivore me to kerve 
And of the cupe ferve, — 

the usual accomplishments of the page. The king's 



I3th Cent.] THE NORMAN-ENGLISH PERIOD 3I 

daughter, Rymenhild, falls in love with Horn ; and no 
wonder, if the description of him is correct. 

He was bright fo the glas, 
He was whit fo the flur, 
Rofe red was his colur, 
In none kinge-riche 
Nas non his iliche. 

He goes in quest of adventures, to prove himself worthy 
of Rymenhild. The course of their love does not run 
smooth. King Aylmar presents a most eligible king as 
his daughter's suitor ; Horn's false friend tries to win 
her ; she is shut up in an island castle ; but Horn, in 
the disguise of a gleeman, makes his way into the castle 
and wins his Rymenhild. He kills his false friend ; he 
finds that his mother still lives ; he regains his father's 
kingdom ; and so the tale ends. This story is thoroughly 
PVench in its treatment of woman. In Beozvidf, the 
wife of the lord is respected and honored, she is her 
lord's friend and helpmeet ; but there is no romance 
about the matter. To picture the smile of woman as the 
reward of valor, and her hand as the prize of victory, 
was left to the verses of those poets who were familiar 
with the glamour of knighthood. 

21. The Norman-English love of nature. This new 
race, the Norman-English, enjoyed romance, they liked 
the new and the unwonted, but there was ever a warm 
corner in their hearts for nature. The dash of the 
waves, the keen breath of the northern wind, the coming 
of spring, the song of the cuckoo, the gleam of the 
daisy, — they loved them all; and in the midst of the 
romances of knights and Saracens and foreign Nature 
countries, they felt a tenderness toward what '^'^^^• 
was their very own, the world of nature. Simple, tender, 
graceful little lyric poems slipped in shyly among the 



32 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [13th Cent. 

more pretentious histories, religious handbooks, and 
paraphrases. Here are bits from them : — 

Sumer is icumen in, 

Llude sing cuccu! 
Groweth sed, and bloweth med, 

And springth the wude nu, 
Sing, cuccu! 

or this : — 

Dayes-eyes in the dales. 
Notes sweete of nightingales, 
Each fowl song singeth, 

or this, which has a touch of the French love ro- 
mance : — 

Blow, northern wind. 
Send thou me my suetyng. 
Blow, northern wind, 
Blow, blow, blow ! 

22. The Robin Hood ballads. Not only love of na- 
ture but love of freedom and love of justice inspired the 
ballads of Robin Hood, many of which must have origi- 
nated during this period, though probably they did not 
take their present form till much later. They are crude, 
simple stories in rhyme of the exploits of Robin Hood 
and his men, and they come straight from the heart of 
the Englishman, that bold, defiant heart which always 
beat more fiercely at the thought of injustice. Robin 
and his friends are exiles because they have dared to 
shoot the king's deer, and they have taken up their 
abode in " merry Sherwood." There they waylay the 
sheriff and the " proud bishop," and force them to open 
their well-filled purses and count out the gold pieces 
that are to make life easier for many a poor man. These 
ballads were not for palaces or for monasteries, they 
were for the English people ; and the ballad-singers 




13th Cent] THE NORMAN-ENGLISH PERIOD 3i 

went about from village to village, singing to one group 
after another, adding a rhyme, or a stanza, or an adventure 
at every repetition. Gradually the tales of the "cour> 
teous outlaw " were forming themselves into a cycle of 
romance, but the days 
of the printing-press 
came too soon for its 
completion. Whether 
Robin was ever a 
"real, live hero" is 
not of the least con- 
sequence. The point 
of interest is that the 
ballads which picture 
his adventures are 
the free, bold expres- 
sion of the sincere feelings of the Englishman in the 
early years of his forced submission to Norman rule. 

23. Value of the Norman-English writings. The 
writings of the first two centuries after the Norman con- 
quest are, as a whole, of small worth. With the increas- 
ing number of translations, such a world of literature 
was thrown open to the English that they were dazzled 
with excess of light. Daringly, but half timidly, they 
ventured to step forward, to try one thing after another. 
No one could expect finish and completeness; the most 
that could be looked for was some beginning of poetry 
that should show imagination, of prose that should show 
power. So ended the thirteenth century, in a kind of 
morning twilight of literature. The fourteenth was the 
time of the dawning, the century of Chaucer. 



A BAND OF MINSTRELS 
From a fourteenth-century MS. 



34 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [i2th-i3th Cent 

Centuries XII and XIII 

THE NORMAN-ENGLISH PERIOD 

Ormulutn. King Arthur. 

Ancren Riwle. Layamon's Brut. 

Cycles of romance. French romances. 

Charlemagne. King Horn. 

Alexander. Nature lyrics. 

Fall of Troy. Robin Hood ballads. 

SUMMARY 

The Norman Conquest affected both language and litera 
ture. English, French, and Latin were used in England ; bul 
English gradually prevailed, until in 1362 it became the official 
language of the courts. Many new words had been added 
and its grammar simplified. 

The literary influence of the Normans was for history, re- 
ligious writings, and story-telling. Two other influences helped 
to arouse the English to mental activity, — the opening of the 
universities and the crusades. 

The chief immediate literary results of this intellectual 
stimulus were the chronicles, now written by men who were 
not monks, and books of devotion. Among the latter was the 
Ormuhitn and the Ancren Riwle. 

Love of story-telling manifested itself in four cycles of ro- 
mance, centring about Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, 
the fall of Troy, and King Arthur. This last cycle went 
through the hands of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, Layamon, 
and others. French romances were popular, especially King 
Horn. 

Love of nature inspired simple, sincere lyrics ; love of free- 
dom and justice inspired the Robin Hood ballads. 

The writings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are oi 
little intrinsic value, but foreshadow better work to come. 



CHAPTER III 

CBNTUET XIV 

CHAUCER'S CENTURY 

24. England in the fourteenth century. The four, 
teenth century was not only the dawning of modern 
English literature, but it was the dawning of me begin- 
English thought. Before this time kings had ^^,.°i 
thought how to keep their thrones ; barons had thought, 
thought how to prevent kings from becoming too power- 
ful ; priests and monks had thought, sometimes how to 
teach the people, sometimes how to get the most possible 
from them ; but the masses of the English people never 
seemed to think of anything that was of interest to them 
ill until about the middle of the fourteenth century. 

One special reason for this beginning of English 
thought was that many thousands of Englishmen had 
become more free than ever before. England had long 
been controlled by what is known as the feu- xhe feudal 
dal system ; that is, a tenure of land on condi- system, 
tion of service. The cultivated portions of England 
were divided into great manors, or farms, and each 
was held by some rich man on condition of giving his 
service to the king. On these manors lived the masses 
of the people, the villeins, or peasants. They were 
obliged as part of their duty to work for their lord a cer- 
tain number of days every year, and they were forbid- 
den to leave the manor. During the crusades, the lords 
who went to the Holy Land needed a great deal of 
money, and they often allowed their tenants to give 



36 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [14th Cent, 

them money instead of service. Sometimes they sold 
them land. These crusades came to an end in the thir- 
teenth century, and even during the early years of the 
fourteenth the peasants were beginning to feel some- 
what independent. 

In 1338, the Hundred Years' War broke out between 
England and France. In 1346, an important battle 
Changed was won at Crecy, not by English knights 

condition ^^ horseback with swords and lances, but bv 
01 the ' •' 

peasants. English peasants on foot with no weapons ex- 
cept bows and arrows. Then the peasants began to say 
to one another, " We can protect ourselves. Why should 
we remain on manors and depend upon knights in 
armor to fight for us ? " Following close upon this bat- 
tle was a terrible disease, called the Black Death, which 
swept over England. When it had gone, half of the 
people of the land were dead. Many of those peasants 
who survived ran away from the manors, for now that 
there were so few workmen, they could earn high wages 
anywhere. Moreover, weaving had been introduced, 
and if they did not wish to do farm-work, they could sup- 
port themselves in any city. The king and his counsel- 
lors made severe laws against this running away ; but 
they could not well be enforced, and they only made the 
peasants angry with all who were richer or more power- 
ful than themselves. They began to question, " How 
are these lords any greater folk than we ? How do they 
deserve wealth any more than we .'' They came from 
Adam and Eve just as we did." 

The masses of the people, then, were angry with the 
Discontent riobles and the other wealthy men. They were 
with the also discontented with the church. After the 
Black Death there was hardly a person in Eng- 
land who was not mourning the loss of dear friends. Es 



i4th Cent] CHAUCER'S CENTURY 37 

pecially the poor longed for the comfort that the church 
should have given them ; but the church paid little atten- 
tion to their needs. Many of the clergy who received 
the income from English benefices lived in Italy, and 
had no further interest in England than to get as much 
from the land as possible. While the peasants were in 
such poverty, vast sums of money were being sent to 
these Italian priests, for fully half the land was in the 
hands of the church. The church did less and less for 
men, while the vision of what it might do was growing 
clearer. Thousands of these unhappy, discontented pea- 
sants marched up to London to demand of the The 
king their freedom and other rights and privi- Revolt! 
leges. This was the Peasants* Revolt of 1381. "si. 
Their demands were not granted, and the revolters were 
severely punished. 

In this century of unrest and change there were four 
authors whose writings are characteristic of „^^ 
the manner in which four classes of people re- prominent 
garded the state of matters. They were: ^^^^°^^' 
r. " Sir John Mandeville," who simply accepted things as 
they were ; 2. William Langland, or Langley, who criti- 
cised and wished to reform ; 3. Wyclif, who criticised and 
wished to overthrow • and 4. Chaucer, the good-humored 
aristocrat, who saw the faults of his times, but gently 
ridiculed them rather than preached against them. 

25. The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mande- 
ville, Kt. This account of distant countries and strange 
peoples purports to have been written by Sir John him- 
self. He claims to be an English knight who has often 
journeyed to Jerusalem, and who puts forth this volume 
to serve as a guide-book to those wishing to make the 
pilgrimage. The introduction seems so " real " that it 
is a pity to be obliged to admit that the work is prob' 



38 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [14th Cent 



ably a combination of a few travellers' stories and a 
vast amount of imagination, and that, worse than all, 
there never was any " Sir John." It was first written 
in French, and then translated into English either in 




SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE ON HIS VOYAGE TO PALESTINE 
From an old MS. in tlie British Museum 



the fourteenth century or the early part of the fifteen^.h. 
The traveller has most marvellous experiences. He finds 
that in the Dead Sea iron will float, while a feather will 
drop to the bottom. "And these be things against kind 
[nature]," says Sir John. He sees in Africa people who 
have but one foot. "They go so fast that it is marvel," 
he declares, "and the foot is so large that it shadow- 
eth all the body against the sun when they will lie 
and rest themselves." Sometimes he brings in a bit of 
science. From his observations of the North Star he 



T4thCent.] CHAUCER'S CENTURY 39 

reasons that" Men may go all round the world and return 
to their country; and always they would find men, lands, 
and isles, as well as in our part of the world." When 
he touches on religious customs, he becomes especially in- 
teresting, for in the midst of the unrest and discontent 
of his age he has no fault to find with the laws or the 
church ; and with all his devotion to the church, he has 
no blame for those whose belief differs from his own. 
*' They fail in some articles of our faith," is his only 
criticism of the Moslems. 

26. William Langland, 1332-1400. William Lang- 
land wrote the Visioji of Piers Plozvman. Very little 
is known of Langland save that he was proba- The vision 
bly a clerk of the church. He knew the lives pif^man 
of the poor so well that it is possible he was iirst 
the son of a peasant living on a manor, and be- 1362-°" 
came free on declaring his intention to enter 1363. 
the service of the church. His Vision comes to him 
one May morning when, as he says — in the alliterative 
verse of Beozvulf, but in words much more like modern 
English : — 

I was wery forwandred ' and went me to reste 
Under a brode banke bi a bornes ^ side, 
And as I lay and lened and loked in the wateres, 
I slombred in a slepyng; it sweyned ^ so merye. 

In his dream he sees " a faire felde full of folke." There 
are plowmen, hermits, men who buy and sell, minstrels, 
jugglers, beggars, pilgrims, lords and ladies, a king, a 
jester, and many others. They are all absorbed in their 
own affairs, but Repentance preaches to them so ear- 
nestly about their sins that finally they all vow to make 
a pilgrimage to the shrine of Truth. No one can tell 
them where to find the shrine. At last they ask Piers 
' weary with wandering. * brook's. » sounded. 



40 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [i4tb Cent 

the Plowman to go with them and show them the way. 
" If I had plowed and sowed my half-acre, I would go 
with you," he repHed. The pilgrims agree to help him, 
and he sets them all to work. While they are working, 
God sends a pardon for them ; but a priest who sees it 
declares that it is no pardon, for it says only that if men 
do well, they shall be saved. 

This ends the vision, but Piers dreams again; " Do 
well, do better, do best," is the keynote of this dream. 
"Doweu ^'^^ does well who is moral and upright; he 
do better, does better who is filled with love and kind- 
ness ; he does best who follows most closely 
the life of the Christ. Finally, Piers is seen in a halo 
of light, for this leader who works and loves and strives 
to save others represents the Christ himself. 

This work is the last important poem written in the 
old alliterative metre of Bcoxvulf. It is an allegory, and 
there are in it such characters as Lady Meed (bribery), 
Holy Church, Conscience, Sir Work-well-with-thine- 
hand, Sir Goodfaith Gowell, Guile, and Reason. Rea- 
son's two horses are Advise-thee-before and Suffer-till- 
I-see-my-time. The liking for allegories came from the 
French, but the puzzling over hard questions of life and 
destiny was one of the characteristics of the early Teu- 
tons. Langland saw the trouble and wrong around him ; 
he saw the hard lives of the poor and the laws that 
oppressed them ; he saw just where the church failed to 
teach and to comfort them ; yet this fourteenth-century 
Puritan never thought of revolt. Some few changes in 
the laws, more earnestness and sincerity in the church, 
and above all, an effort on the part of each to "do 
best," — and the eager reformer believed that happiness 
would smile upon the world of England. In 1361, only 
one year before this poem was written, the Black Death 



1324-1384] CHAUCER'S CENTURY 4I 

had for the second time swept over the land. For the 
second time a great wave of hopeless sorrow and help- 
lessness had overwhelmed the hearts of the people. 
Langland had put into words what was in every one's 
thoughts. It is no wonder that his poem was read by 
thousoinds ; that men saw more clearly than ever the 




JOHN WYCLIF 



evils of the times; that they began to look about them 

for strength to bear their lives, for help to make them 

better. 

27. John Wyclif, 1324-1384. The strength and 

help were already on the way, for while Lang- wycUfs 
11 1 • IT..- 4. w translation 

land was planning some additions to his poem, ottheBiwa, 

a learned clergyman named John Wyclif was i380- 

translating the Bible into the language of the people 



42 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1364-1384 

Wyclif was a very interesting man. Until he was about 
forty, he was a quiet student and preacher. Suddenly 
he appeared in public as the opponent of the pope him- 
self. The pope claimed that England had not paid him 
his proper tax for many years. " We need the money," 
declared Wyclif, "and surely a people has a right to 
self-preservation." The king and the clergy supported 
the bold patriot, and they were not at all annoyed while 
he preached against the sins of the monks ; but when he 
was not satisfied with calling for the purification of the 
church, and for better lives on the part of the clergy and 
the monks, but began to preach and write against tran- 
substantiation and other doctrines, they were indignant. 
The authorities in England tried to arrest him, and the 
pope commanded that he be brought to Rome : but still 
he sent his tracts over the length and breadth of the 
country. He wrote no more in Latin, but in simple, 
straightforward English that the plain people could 
understand. Such is the English of his translation of 
the Scriptures. The following is a specimen of its lan- 
guage : — 

Blessid be pore men in spirit: for the kyngdom of hevenes is 
herum. Blessid ben mylde men : for thei scliulen weelde the 
erthe. Blessid ben thei that mournen : for thei schal be coumfortid. 
Blessid be thei that hungren and thirsten after rigtwisnesse : for 
thei schal be fulfillid. Blessid ben merciful men : for thei scha' 
gete mercy. Blessid ben thei that ben of clene herte : for thei 
schulen se god : Blessid ben pesible men : for thei schulen be 
clepid goddis children. Blessid ben thei that suffren persecucioun 
for rightwisnesse : for the kyngdom of heavens is hern. 

Many churchmen honestly believed that it was wrong 
to give the Bible to those who were not scholars, lest 
they should not understand it aright ; and even more 
were either shocked or angry at Wyclif's daring to crit- 



1340-1400J CHAUCER'S CENTURY 43 

icise the teachings of the church and the lives of the 
clergy. Persecution arose against the preacher persecution 
and his followers. He was protected by power- o*"Wyci«- 
ful friends ; but, forty years after his death, his grave 
was opened, his bones burned, and the ashes tossed 
scornfully into the river Swift. It was easier, however, 
for his opponents to fling away his ashes than to destroy 
his influence upon the people and upon the language. 
His Bible was in manuscript, of course, because printing 
had not yet been invented ; but it was read and reread 
by thousands, and the plain, strong words used by him- 
self and his assistants became a part of the every-day 
language. Moreover, this translation showed that an 
English sentence need not be loose and rambling, but 
might be as clear and definite as a Latin sentence; that 
English as well as Latin could express close reasoning 
and keen argument. 

28. Geoflrey Chaucer, 13409-1400. While Wyclif 
was preaching at Oxford and Langland had not yet 
begun to work on his Vision, a young page was grow- 
ing up in the house of the Duke of Clarence who was 
destined to become the prince of story-tellers in verse. 
This young Geoffrey Chaucer was the son of a wine 
merchant of London. He lived like other courtiers ; he 
went to France to help fight his king's battles, was taken 
prisoner, was ransomed and set free. He wrote some 
love verses in the French fashion and translated some 
French poems, but he would have been somewhat amazed 
if any one had told him that he would be known five hun- 
dred years later as the " Father of English Poetry." 

By 1372, the young courtier had become a man "of 
some respect," and the king sent him on diplomatic mis- 
sions to various countries, twice at least to Italy. The 
literature of Italy was far in advance of that of England, 



44 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1372-1400 

and now the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio 
were open to the poet diplomat. Finally, Chaucer' was 
again in England ; and when he wrote, he wrote like an 
Englishman, but like an Englishman who was familiar 
with the best that France and Italy had to give. 

29. The Canterbury Tales. A collection of stories 
written by Boccaccio was probably what suggested to 

Chaucer the writing of a similar collection. 
Boccaccio , '^ 

and Boccaccio s stones are told by a company of 

Chaucer. fnends who have fled from the plague-stricken 
city of Florence to a villa in the country. Chaucer made 
a plan that allowed even more variety, for his stories 
are told by a company who were going on a pilgrimage 
to the shrine of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. Boc- 
caccio's people were of nearly the same rank ; but on 
a pilgrimage all sorts of folk were sure to meet, and 
therefore Chaucer was perfectly free to introduce any 
kind of person that he chose. 

Making a pilgrimage was a common thing in those 
Pilgrim- days, and people went for various reasons : some 
ages. ^Q pj-^y ^^^ make offerings to the saint that 

they believed had helped them in sickness or trouble, 
some to petition for a favor, some for the pleasure of 
making a journey, and some simply because others were 
going. Travelling alone was not agreeable and not 
always safe, therefore these pilgrims often set out in com- 
panies, and a merry time they made of it. Some even 
took minstrels and bagpipes to amuse them on the road. 

The Ca7iterbiiry Tales is Chaucer's best work. It be- 
gins on a bright spring morning, when he had gone to 
the Tabard Inn in Southwark for the first stage in his 
pilgrimage to Canterbury. Just at night a party of 
twenty-nine rode up to the door of the inn, and the 
solitary traveller was delighted to find that they, too. 



I372-I400] 



CHAUCER'S CENTURY 



45 



had set out on the same errand. There was nothing 
shy or unsocial about this pilgrim, and before bedtime 
came, he had made friends with them all, and had agreed 
to join their party. A very cheerful party it was, and 
these good-natured travellers were pleased with the 
rooms, the stables, the supper, the wine, and especially 
with the landlord, Harry Bailey, whom the poet calls 
"a merry man." After supper the host tells them that 
he never before saw so cheerful a company together at 
his inn. Then he talks about their journey. He says he 
knows well that they are not planning to make a gloomy 
time of it. 



For trewely confort ne myrthe is noon 
To ride by the weye doumb as a stoon, 

he declares ; and he proposes that each one of them shall 

tell two stories going and two more returning, and that 

when they have come back, a supper shall be given to 

the one who has told the 

best story. This pleases 

the pilgrims, and they are 

even more pleased when 

the cheery landlord offers 

to go with them, to be their 

guide and to judge the 

merit of the tales. 

Then come the stories 
themselves. There are only 
twenty-five of them, and 
three of those are incom- 
plete, for Chaucer never 
carried out his full plan. 
They are of all kinds. There are stories of knights and 
monks; of giants, fairies, miracles; of the crafty fox who 




THE PRIORESS 
From the Ellesmere MS., which is the best 
as well as one of the oldest of the Chau- 
cer MSS. 



46 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1372-1400 




ran away with Chanticleer in his bag, but was persuaded 
by the no less crafty rooster to drop the bag and make 
a speech of defiance to his pursuers. There are sto- 
ries of magic swords that 
would cut through any 
kind of armor, and there 
is a tale of " faire Eme- 
lye," the beloved of two 
young knights, one of 
whom was in prison and 
could gaze upon her only 
from afar, while the other 
was forbidden on pain of 
death to enter the city 
wherein she dwelt. 

After the fashion of his 
day, Chaucer took the 
plots of his tales from 
wherever he might find them, but it is his way of tell- 
Chaucer's ing the stories that is so fascinating. We can- 
style. j^Qj. j^gip fancying that he is talking directly to 

us, for he drops in so many little confidential "asides." 
"I have told you about the company of pilgrims," he 
says, "and now it is time to tell you what we did that 
night, and after that I will talk about our journey." 
At the end of a subject he is fond of saying, "That 
is all. There is no more to say." He is equally con- 
fidential when he describes his various characters, as 
he does in the Prologue before he begins his story- 
telling. It was no easy task to describe each one of a 
large company so accurately that we can almost see 
them, and so interestingly that we are in no haste to 
come to the stories ; but Chaucer was successful. He 
describes the knight, who had just returned from a jour- 



THE WIFE OF BATH 
From the Harleian MS. 



I 372- 1400] 



CHAUCER'S CENTURY 



47 



ney, and was so eager to make his grateful pilgrimage 
that he had set out with his short cassock Chaucer's 
still stained from his coat of mail ; the dainty characters, 
young prioress, who had such perfect table-manners that 
she never dipped her fingers deep in the gravy — an 
important matter to table-mates before forks were in 
use — or let a drop fall on her breast ; the sailor, whose 
beard had been shaken by many a tempest ; the phy- 
sician, who had not his equal in the whole world ; the 
woman of Bathe, with her 
"scarlet red" stockings, 
her soft new shoes, and 
her hat as broad as a 
buckler ; and the gay 
young squire, whose gown 
' with sieves longe and 
wyde" was so richly em- 
broidered that it looked 
like a meadow " al ful of 
fresshe floures whyte and 
reede." Chaucer gives us 
a picture of the merry 
company, but more than 
that, he shows us what 
kind of people they were. 
He tells us their faults in 
satire as keen as it is good-natured. The monk likes 
hunting better than obeying strict convent rules, and 
Chaucer says of him slyly that when he rode, men could 
hear the little bells on his bridle jingle quite as loud 
as the bell of the chapel. The learned physician was 
somewhat of a miser, and Chaucer whispers cannily, — 

For gold in phisik is a cordial, 
Therefore he lovede gold in special. 




THE SQUIRE 

From the EUesmere MS 



48 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1372-1400 




THE PARSON 
From the Ellesmere MS. 



The two characters for whom the poet has most sym- 
pathy are the thin and threadbare Oxford student, who 
would rather have books 
than gorgeous robes or 
musical instruments ; and 
the earnest, faithful par- 
ish priest, who " Christes 
Gospel trewely wolde 
preche," and who never 
hired some one to take 
charge of his parish while 
he slipped away to live an 
easy life in a brotherhood. 
This keen - eyed poet, 
with his warm sympathy, 
could hardly have helped 
nature, and he can picture a bright, dewy May 
morning so clearly that we can almost see 
"the silver dropes hangyng on the leves." 
He liked May and sunshine and birds and 
lilies and roses. He liked the daisy, and when he 
caught sight of the first one, he wrote : — 

And down on knees anon right I me set, 
And as I could this freshe flower I grette, 
Kneeling always till it inclosed was 
Upon the small and soft and sweete grass. 

30. Death of Chaucer, 1400. Chaucer's life was not 
all sunshine, but he was always sunny and bright. He 
writes as if he knew so many pleasant things that he 
could not help taking up his pen to tell us of them. His 
death occurred in 1400, and that date is counted as the 
end of the old literature and the beginning of the new. 
Chaucer well deserves the titiC, "Father of English 
Poetry;" but when we read his poems, we forget his 



loving 

Chaucer's 
love of 
nature. 



I372-I400] 



CHAUCER'S CENTURY 



49 



titles and his learning, and think of him only as the 
best of story-tellers. 

We owe gratitude to Chaucer not only because he left 
us some delightful poems, but because he broke away 
from the old Anglo-Saxon metre and because he wrote 
in English. The Canterbury Tales begins: — 

Whan that Aprille with hise shoures soote 

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, 

And bathed every veyne in swich licour Chaucer'» 

Of which vertu engendred is the fiour; language- 

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth 

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth 

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne 

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne, 

And smale foweles maken melodye 

That slepen al the nyght with open eye, — 

So priketh hem Nature in hir corages, — 

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages. 

This is written in the 5- 
beat line, which gives 
more freedom than the 
4-beat line of Beowulf. 
Alliteration is not em- 
ployed to mark the ac- 
cented syllables, but only 
to ornament the verse. 
Chaucer used many 
French words and often 
retained the French end- 
ings ; but he used them 
so easily and so appropri- 
ately that they "seemed to 
Oecome a part of the lan- 
guage. Another service 

° ° CHAUCER 

and an even greater one From the Eiiesmere ms. 




50 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [14th Cent. 

he rendered to the English tongue. People in different 
parts of England spoke in English, to be sure, but in 
widely differing dialects. Chaucer wrote in what was 
known as the Midland dialect, and his work was so good 
and so well liked that it had a powerful influence to fix 
the language ; that is, to make his writings and his 
vocabulary models for the authors who succeeded him. 

Century XIV 

CHAUCER'S CENTURY 

-" Sir John Mandeville." John Wyclif. 

William Langland. Geoffrey Chaucer. 

SUMMARY 

The weakening of the feudal system brought about the 
dawning of English thought. The causes of this weakening 
were : — 

1. The lords, wishing to become crusaders, often accepted 
money instead of work. 

2. In the Hundred Years' War the peasants discovered 
their power, 

3. The Black Death lessened the number of workers, and 
enabled men to find farm-work where they chose and to de- 
mand what wages they liked. 

4. The introduction of weaving made it possible for pea- 
sants to support themselves without working on the land. 

Harsh laws aroused discontent with the government ; the 
negligence of the clergy aroused discontent with the church. 
This discontent showed itself finally in the Peasants' Revolt 
of 1381. 

Four writers are typical of the four chief classes of people : — 
. I. "Sir John Mandeville," who accepted things as they 
were. 

2. William Langland, who in Piers Plowman showed his 
wish to bring about reforms. 



I4th Cent.] CHAUCER'S CENTURY 51 

3. John Wyclif, who wished to overthrow rather than to 
reform. He and his assistants translated the Bible into 
English. Its clear, strong phrasing became a part of the 
every-day speech, and did much to fix the language by show- 
ing its powers. 

4. Geoffrey Chaucer, who good-naturedly ridiculed the faults 
of his times, Chaucer's great work is the Canterbury Tales^ 
which was probably suggested by Boccaccio's Decameron. 
Chaucer abandoned the early Anglo-Saxon metre and wrote 
in rhymed heroic verse. His work was so excellent that it 
fixed the Midland dialect as the literary language of England. 



CHAPTER TV 

CENTURY XV 

THE PEOPLE'S CENTURY 

31. The imitators of Chaucer. Chaucer's poetry was 
so much better than any that had preceded it that the 
poets who lived in the early part of the fifteenth cen- 
tury made many attempts at imitation. They were not 
very successful. Chaucer wrote, for instance: — 

The bisy larke, messager of day, 
Salueth in hir song the morwe gray; 
And fiery Phcebus riseth up so brighte 
That al the orient laugheth of the Hghte, 
And with his stremes dryeth in the graves 
The silver droppes hangyng on the leves. 

One of Chaucer's imitators wrote : — 

Ther he lay to the larke song 
With notes newe, hegh up in the ayr. 
The glade morowe, rody and right fayr, 
Phebus also casting up his bemes, 
The heghe hylles gilt with his stremes, 
The syluer dewe upon the herbes rounde, 
Ther Tydeus lay upon the grounde. 

The best of these imitators was a king, James I 
James I of Scotland, who was captured by the Eng- 
1395°-^^*'^ ' lish when he was a boy of eleven, and was 
1437. kept a prisoner in England for nineteen 

years. During his captivity he fell in love with the 
king's niece, and to her he wrote the tender verses of 



1400-1425] THE PEOPLE'S CENTURY S3 

The Kings Quair^ He describes his loneliness as fol- 
lows : — 

Bewailing in my chamber thus allone, 

Despeired of all joye and remedye, 

For-tiret of my thought and wo-begone, 

And to the wyndow gan I walk in hye, 
To see the warld and folk that went forbye, 
As for the tyme though I of mirthis fude 
Mycht have no more, to luke it did me gude. 

He catches sight of the princess walking in the garden, 

The fairest or the freschest younge floure 

That ever I sawe, methought, before that houre. 

He gazes at her; then, 

And in my hede I drew rycht hastily, 

And eft.sones I lent it out ageyne, 
And saw hir walk that verray womanly, 

With no wight mo, bot only women tueyne, 
Than gan I studye in myself and seyne, 

Ah ! suete, are ye a warldly creature, 

Or hevinly thing in likeness of nature ? 

So it is that the captive king wrote his love, with a 
frank, admiring imitation of Chaucer, but so simply and 
so naturally that he is more than a name on a printed 
page; and it is really a pleasure to know that the course 
of his love ran smooth, and that he was finally allowed 
to return to his kingdom with the wife whom he had 
chosen. This seven-line stanza was not original with 
him by any means, but because a king had used it, it 
became known as "rhyme royal." 

32. Sir Thomas Malory. This century began and 

ended with royalty, for in its early years King James 

wrote its best poetry, and toward its end Sir Thomas 

Malory — of whom little is known — wrote its best prose, 

• Book. 



54 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1470-1485 

the Morte d' Arthur, the old stories of King Arthur 
Morte grown more full, more simple, and more beauti- 

d' Arthur, ful than ever. "Thys noble and Joyous book," 
Caxton called it when he put it into print. At 
the close of Arthur's life he bids, according to Malory, 
" Syr Bedwere " to throw the sword Excalibur into the 
lake. Syr Bedwere obeys. Then says the author : — 

He threwe the swerde as farre in to the water as he myght, 
& there cam an arme and an hande aboue the water and matte 
it, & caught it and so shake it thryse and braundysshed, and then 
vanysshed awaye the hande wyth the swerde in the water. . . . 
Than syr Bedwere toke the Kyng vpon his backe and so wente wyth 
hym to that water syde, & whan they were at the water syde euen 
fast by the banke houed a lytyl barge wyth many fayr ladyes in hit, 
& emange hem al was a quene, and al they had blacke hoodes 
and al they wepte and shryked whan they sawe Kyng Arthur. 
" Now put me in to the barge," sayd the kyng, and so he dyd 
softelye. 

33. The age of arrest. The fifteenth century is 
sometimes called the "age of arrest" because it is not 
No great marked by any great literary work like that of 
literature Chaucer. There are good reasons why no such 
work should have been produced. Plrst, the 
greater part of the century was full of warfare. The 
Hundred Years' War did not close until 1453, and there 
was hardly time to sharpen the battle-axes and put new 
strings to the bows before another war far more fierce 
than the first broke out, and did not come to an end 
until 1485. This was the War of the Roses, which was 
fought between the supporters of rival claimants to the 
English throne. Sometimes one side had the advan- 
tage and sometimes the other ; and whichever party was 
in power put to death the prominent men of the oppos- 
ing party. Second, there was not only no rest or quiet 
in the kingdom for great literary productions, but at 



i5th Cent.] THE PEOPLE'S CENTURY 55 

least half of the nobles, the people of leisure, were killed 
in the terrible slaughter. Third, the church, which paid 
no taxes, owijed so much of the land that the whole 
burden of taxation had to be borne by only a part of the 
people. 

Poor in literature as this century of fighting was, 
there were two reasons why it was good for the " com- 
mon folk." In the first place, knighthood was Qainofthe 
becoming of less and less value, partly because common 
of the increasing use of gunpowder, but even ^°°^^^- 
more because the English had at last learned that a 
man encased in armor so heavy that he could hardly 
mount his horse without help was not so valuable a sol- 
dier as a man on foot with a bow or a battle-axe. In 
the second place, war could not be carried on without 
money, and money must come by vote of the House of 
Commons, which represented, however poorly and un- 
fairly, the masses of the people. If the king and his 
counsellors wished to obtain money, they were obliged 
to pay more attention than ever before tc the desires of 
the people. 

34. Ballads. It was from the common folk that the 
most interesting literature of the century came, the 
ballads. An age of turmoil and unrest was, as has been 
said, no time for elaborate literary work, but the flashes 
of excitement, the news of a battle lost or a battle won, 
the story of some brave fighter returning from the war, 
— all these inspired short, strong ballads. Of course 
there had been many ballads before then, especially those 
of Robin Hood, but the fifteenth was the special century 
of the ballad, the time when the strong undercurrent of 
this poetry of the people came most conspicuously to 
the surface. No one knows who composed these ballads, 
but the wording shows that many of them came from 



56 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [isth Cent. 

Scotland, and were inspired by the wild forays that 
were continually taking place between the Scotch and 
Chevy the English who dwelt near the border line of 
Chase. |-|-,g ^-^^q countries. The most famous of all 
the border ballads is that of Chevy Chase y which be- 
gins : — 

The Persd out of Northomberlonde, 

and a vowe to God mayd he 
That he wold hunte in the mountayns 

off Chyviat within days thre 

In the magger of doughty Dogles, 

and all that ever with him be. 

The marks -^ ballad is not merely a story told in rhyme \ 
of a ballad, jt ^^s several distinctive marks : — 

1. It plunges into the tale without a moment's delay. 
There is not a shade of Chaucer's leisurely description. 
Chevy Chase does not even stop to explain who the two 
heroes, Percy and Douglas, may be. 

2. It does something and says something. Every 
word counts in the story. We know from their deeds 
and words what the ballad people think, but " He longed 
strange countries for to see," or he "fell in love with 
Barbara Allen," is about as near a description of their 
thoughts as the ballad ever gives. 

3. It is very definite. If people are bad, they are 
very bad ; and if they are good, they are very good. 
" Alison Gross " is " the ugliest witch in the north 
countrie." The bonny maiden is the fairest flower of 
all England. Colors are bright and strong : — 

O bonnie, bonnie was her mouth 

And cherry were her cheeks ; 
And clear, clear was her yellow hair, 

Whereon the red blude dreeps. 

Comparisons are of the simplest ; the maiden has a milk- 



I5th Cent.] THE PEOPLE'S CENTURY $7 

white hand, her cheeks are red as a rose, and her eyes 
are blue as the sky. 

4. The metre is almost always 4, 3, 4, 3 ; that is, the 
first and third lines contain four accented syllables, the 
second and fourth contain three. The second and fourth 
lines rhyme, sometimes the first and third also. The 
final syllable often receives an accent even when there 
would be none in prose. 

5. Most of the ballads show the touch of the Celt. 
There are weird stories of the return of ghostly lovers ; 
there are fascinating little gleams of fairyland, of beauty 
and of happiness, but often with a shade of sadness or 
loneliness, the unmistakable mark of the Celtic nature, 
that could turn from smiles to tears in the flashing of a 
moment. 

O sweetly sang the blackbird 

That sat upon the tree ; 
But sairer grat Lamkin 

When he was condemned to die. 

We do not know who composed the older ballads. 
Indeed, each one seems to have grown up almost like a 
little epic. The gleeman wandered from vil- ^ 

lage to village, singing to groups of listeners, of the 
whose rapt eagerness was his inspiration. He * ^" 
sang his song again and again, each time adding to it or 
taking from it, according to whether his invention or his 
memory was the better. Moreover, there was no pri- 
vate ownership in ballad land. Any ballad was welcome 
to a line or a stanza from any other. Little by little 
the song grew, until finally its form was fixed by the 
coming of the printing-press. 

35. Mystery plays. The fifteenth century was the 
time when the mystery or miracle play was at its best. 
This kind of play originated in the attempts of the clergy 



58 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 



[15th Cent 



to teach the people, and was common on the Continent 
long before the coming of the Normans to England. 
There were few books and few who could read. There- 
fore the clergy conceived the idea of acting in the church 
short plays presenting scenes from the Bible. To give 
room for more people to hear, the play was soon per- 
formed on a scaffold in the churchyard. Gradually the 
acting was given up by the priests and fell into the 
hands of the parish clerks ; then into those of the guilds, 




A MYSTERY PLAY AT COVENTRY 

From an old print 

or companies of tradesmen, for long before the fifteenth 
century the men of each craft had formed themselves 
into a guild. Slowly the plays became cycles, 
each cycle following the Bible story from Gen- 
esis to the end of the Gospels, sometimes to the resur* 



I5th Cent.] THE PEOPLE'S CENTURY 59 

rection. Each guild had in charge the presentation of 
one story or more. The acting was no longer in the 
churchyards, but at different convenient stations in the 
town. The stage was a great two-story or three-story 
wagon called a pageant. An important part of the 
scenery was "hell mouth," represented by a pair of 
widely gaping jaws full of smoke and flames, into which 
unrepentant sinners were summarily hurled and from 
which Satan issued to take his part in the drama. The 
plays were always acted in the biblical order. When 
one play was ended, the pageant moved on, leaving the 
place free for the next play, so that a person remaining 
at any one station could see the whole cycle. 

To modern ideas there are some things in these plays 
that seem irreverent ; for instance, the repre- seemingir- 
sentation of God the Father on the stage. In "▼"«!"!»• 
one of the plays of the creation he is made to say famil 

iarly : — 

Adam and Eve, this is tlie place 
That I have graunte you of my grace 

To have your wonnyng * in ; 
Erbes, spyce, frute on tree, 
Beastes, fewles,^ all that ye see, 

Shall bo we to you, more and myn.^ 
This place hight paradyce, 

Here shall your joys begynne, 
And yf that ye be wyse, 

From thys tharr* ye never twynne.^ 

Again, when the angels appear to the shepherds to 
sing of peace on earth, one of the shepherds says, " I 
can sing it as well as he, if you will help;" and he tries 
to imitate the heavenly song. 



* dwelling. 


« fowls. 


* great and small. 


* need. 


* depart 





6o ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [15th Cent 

The makers of the mystery plays knew as well as the 
writers of hom.ilies that if the attention of the people 
Comical was to be retained, there must be amusement 
scenes. ^g ^g|| ^g instruction, and therefore they did 
not hesitate to introduce comical scenes. The antics of 
Satan were made to provide a vast amount of amusement ; 
and even more respectable scriptural characters were 
impressed into the service of making fun to gratify the 
demands of the spectators. After Noah has built his 
ark, he requests his wife to come into it, but she objects. 
Noah ought not to have worked on that ark one hundred 
years before telling her what he was doing, she says ; at 
any rate, she must go home to pack her belongings ; she 
does not believe it will rain long, and if it does, she will 
not be saved without her cousins and her friends. She 
is finally persuaded to enter the ark. At last the door is 
closed, and Noah might well offer up a prayer of grati- 
tude or sing a hymn of praise for the safety of himself 
and his family ; but, instead, he proceeds to give most 
prosaic directions to his sons to take good care of the 
cattle, and to his daughters-in-law to be sure to feed the 
fowls. 

With all their crudeness, these plays are often gentle 
and sympathetic. Joseph watches over Mary most lov- 
Tenderness higly. " My daughter," he tenderly calls her. 
of the plays, js^^ ^-^q crucifixion John's words of comfort 
to the sorrowing mother are very touching. " My 
heart is gladder than gladness itself," says Mary Mag- 
dalene at the resurrection. Such were the plays that 
pleased the people ; for they were simple, childlike, warm- 
hearted, ready to be amused, satisfied with the rudest 
jesting, and accustomed to treat sacred things with famil- 
iarity, but with no conscious irreverence. Going to a 
mystery play, like going on a pilgrimage, was a religious 



iSth Cent. 




A SCEN1I FROM EVERYMAN 
This is a photograph of the reproduction of the play given by the Ben Greet Company iu 
1903. It represents Everyman on his pilgrimage, followed by Beauty, Strength, Dis- 
cretion, and Five Wits. Good Deeds and Knowledge are in the background 

duty ; but the medieeval mind saw no reason why duty 
and amusement should not be agreeably united. 

36. Miracle plays and moralities. In England these 
plays were more frequently called miracle plays, though 
this name was applied elsewhere only to dramas based 
not upon biblical scenes, but upon legends of saints or 
martyrs. Often one kind of play blended with another; 
for instance, Mary Magdalene introduces scenes from 
the life of Christ, like a mystery ; it follows out the le- 
gends of the heroine, like a miracle ; it also leads to a 
third variety of play, the morality, in that it introduces 
abstract characters, such as Sloth, Gluttony, Wrath, and 
Envy, for in the morality the characters were the virtues 
and vices. What amusement was in them was made by 
the Devil and a new character, the Vice, who played 



62 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [15th Cent. 

tricks on Satan in much the fashion of the clown or fool 
of later days. At first sight, the morality seems dreary 
reading, especially when compared with the liveliness 
and rapid action of the mystery. There is no dreari- 
ness, however, to one who reads between the Hnes and is 
mindful of how intensely real the story was to those 
who listened to it in the earlier ages. One of 
veryman. ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ moralities is Everyman, which 

was taken from the Dutch. In this play, Death, God's 
messenger, is sent to bid the merry young Everyman to 
make the long journey. Everyman pleads for a respite, 
he offers a bribe, he begs that some one may go with 
him. " Ye, yf ony be so hardy," Death replies. Then 
Everyman in sore distress appeals to Fellowship to 
keep him company. 

For no man that is lyvynge to daye 
I will not go that lothe journaye, 

replies Fellowship. Kindred refuse the petition. Good 
Deeds would go with him, but Everyman's sins have 
so weighed her down that she is too weak to stand. At 
last Knowledge leads him to confession. He does pen- 
ance and starts on his lonely pilgrimage. One by one, 
Beauty, Strength, Honor, Discretion, and his Five Wits 
forsake him. Good Deeds alone stands as his friend, and 
says sturdily with renewed strength, " Fere not, I wyll 
speke for the." Everyman descends fearfully but trust- 
fully into the grave. Knowledge cries, " Nowe hath he 
suffred that we all shall endure;" and the play ends with 
a solemn prayer, — 

And he that hath his accounte hole and sounde, 

Hye in heven he shall be crounde, 
Unto whiche place God brynge us all thyder 
That we may lyve body and soule togyder. 



1476] 



THE PEOPLE'S CENTURY 



63 



This is not entertaining, but it is far from being dull. 
With the simple stage setting of four centuries ago, the 
realistic grave, and the ghastly, ashen gray figure of 
Death, it must have thrilled and solemnized the hushed 
listeners as neither play nor sermon could do in later 
generations. 

37. Introduction of printing into England, 1476. 
In the last quarter of the century there were two not- 
able events that were destined to do more for the 
masses of the people than anything that had preceded. 




CAXTON PRESENTED TO EDWARD IV 
Earl Rivers giving the book to the king, while Caxton kneels beside him 

The first of these events was the introduction of print 
ing into England. Through these centuries of the 
beginning of literature, plays, homilies, poems, and 



64 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE ^^476 

lengthy books of prose had all been copied by the pen 
on parchment or vellum. Cheap picture books were 
printed on a coarse, heavy paper from wooden blocks, 
and some of these "block books" contained text also; 
but to print with movable types was a German invention 
of the middle of the century. Fortunately for English 
William book lovers, an Englishman named William 
1422°?- Caxton, who was then living in Germany, was 
1491. interested in the wonderful new art, and paid 

well for lessons in typesetting and all the other details 
of the trade. He was not only a keen business man, 
who thought money could be made by printing, but he 
was also a man of literary taste and ability, and the first 
The first English book that he printed was a translation 
printed of his own, called The Reciiyell of tJic Historyes 
ijook, prob- of Troy e. He wrote triumphantly to a friend 
ably 1474. j-j^^^ j^jg book was "not written with pen and 
ink as other books be." This was in 1474. Two years 
later, he and his press came to England, and there he 
printed volume after volume. The CanterbiLvy Tales, 
Malory's Morte d' Arthur, yEsop's Fables, and nearly one 
hundred other volumes came from his press. 

In the simple, primitive fashion of the fifteenth cen^ 
tury, which ascribed to Satanic agency whatever was 
new or mysterious, there were many people in England 
who looked upon Caxton's magical output of books as 
Decrease unquestionably the work of the devil ; but the 
price^of press was still kept busy, and the price of 
books. books became rapidly less. Before Caxton 

began to print, they were enormously expensive. A 
Hbrary of twenty or thirty volumes was looked upon as 
a rare collection ; and it was no wonder, for the usual 
rate for copying was a sum equal to-day to nearly fifty 
cents a page. Caxton's most expensive book could be 



iSth Cent.] THE PEOPLE'S CENTURY 



65 



purchased for about 1^30. How amazed he would have 
been if he could have looked forward to 1885 and seen 
one of his earlier and less perfect volumes sold for 
nearly ^10,000! 

38. Signs of progress. England was not so wildly 
enthusiastic over literature that every tradesman or 
even every noble who 
could command a few 
pounds hastened to 
purchase a book; but 
the mere fact that 
there were „„ ^ , 

Effect of 
books for sale printing on 

at a price ^''^^^''• 
lower than had been 
dreamed of before was 
a hope and an inspira- 
tion. It was easier to 
see books, to borrow 
them, to know about 
them ; and little by 
little the knowledge 
filtered down through earliest known representation of a 

° PRINTING-PRESS 

the various classes of 

people, until that one printing-press at Westminster had 

given new thoughts and new hopes to thousands. 

New thoughts were coming from yet another source. 
Columbus had discovered what was supposed to be 
a shorter way to India ; Vasco da Gama had poreign 
rounded Africa ; hundreds had gazed with wide- discoveries 
open eyes upon the ship of the Cabots as it sailed from 
the English wharfs, and had followed the " Grand Ad- 
miral" as he walked about the streets on his return, 
with all the glory of his discoveries about him. No one 




66 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [15th Cent. 

yet suspected that he had landed on the shores of a con- 
tinent, but it was enough to hear the sailors' stories of 
strange plants and animals and people. Who could say 
what other marvels might be discov^ered ? 

Then came the end of the century. The homes of 
the masses of the people had made small addition of 
comfort ; the noble treated the peasants who 
and the Still lived on his land with perhaps small in- 
century. crease of respect ; but for all that, the fifteenth 
century was marked by the increasing importance of the 
common people. They had shown their prowess in 
fighting ; they held more firmly the money-bags of the 
kingdom ; the ballads were theirs ; the mystery plays 
were theirs ; the new art of printing would benefit them 
rather than the wealthy nobles ; the discovery of Amer- 
ica would be to their gain, and it was already a stimulus 
to their intellect and their imagination. The sixteenth 
century was at hand, and men had a right to expect from 
it such a display of universal intellectual ability as Eng- 
land had never known. 

Century XV 

THE PEOPLE'S CENTURY 
James L of Scotland. Mystery plays. 

Sir Thomas Malory. Moralities. 

Ballads. 

SUMMARY 

The poets of the early part of the century tried to imitate 
ohaucer. Of these imitators, King James I of Scotland was 
the best. Toward the end of the century, Sir Thomas Malory 
wrote the best prose, the Morte iP Arthur. 

Only a small amount of good literature was produced be 
cause : — 

I. The Hundred Years' War and the Wars of the Roses 
filled the age with fighting. 



iSth Cent] THE PEOPLE'S CENTURY 67 

2. A large number of the nobles were slain. 

3. The people were heavily taxed. 

The common people gained in power because, first, the use 
of gunpowder made knighthood of decreasing value ; and, sec- 
ondly, the money needed for this warfare could be obtained 
only by vote of the House of Commons. 

From the common folk came the most interesting literature 
of the time, the ballads. They have no introduction ; they 
are definite ; their metre is usually 4, 3, 4, 3 ; they generally 
show a Celtic touch. A ballad is often the work of many 
hands. 

The miracle plays were at their best. They were acted 
first by the clergy ; then by members of guilds. They were 
followed by the moralities, of which Everyman is the best 
example. 

Toward the end of the century, there were two notable 
events which aroused and stimulated the people. They 
were : — 

1. The introduction of printing into England by William 
Caxton, followed by a decrease in the price of books and a 
much more general circulation of them. 

2. Foreign discoveries by Columbus, Da Gama, the Cabots, 
and others. 

The distinguishing mark of the age was the increasing im 
portance of the common peoole. 



CHAPTER V 

CENTURY XVI | 

SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 

39. Revival of learning in Europe. For three hun- 
dred years after the Norman Conquest, English writers 
were inclined to follow French models. Then came 
Chaucer, who, thoroughly English as he was, retold 
Italian stories, and was for some years greatly influenced 
The liter- ^^ Italian literature. Italy was looked upon as 
ary position the land of knowledge and light, and it was 
^' the custom for Englishmen who wished for 
better educational advantages than Oxford or Cam- 
bridge could afford, to go to that country to study in 
some one of the great universities. 

Italian scholars were deeply interested in the writings 
of the Greeks and Romans. For many years they had 
The Re- been collecting ancient manuscripts, and in 
naissance. 1453 an event occurred which brought more of 
them to Italy than ever before. This event was the 
capture of Constantinople by the Turks, Constantino- 
ple had been the home of many Greek scholars, who 
now fled to Italy and brought the priceless manuscripts 
with them. Then there was study of the classics in- 
deed. More and more students went from other coun- 
tries to Italy. More and more copies of those manu- 
scripts were carried to different parts of Europe. Among 
the ancient writings was clear, concise prose, so care- 
fully finished that every word seemed to be in its owr> 



i6th Cent.] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 69 

proper niche ; there were beautiful epics and much 
other poetry ; there were essays, histories, biographies, 
and orations. Printing had come at just the right time 
to spread this new ancient knowledge over the Conti- 
nent and England. All western Europe was aroused. 
People felt a new sense of boldness and freedom. They 
felt as if in the years gone by they had been slow and 
stupid. Now they became daring and fearless in their 
thought. They were eager to learn, to do, to under- 
stand. This movement was so marked that a name was 
given to it, the Renaissance, or new birth, for people 
felt as if a new life had come to them. The Renais- 
sance did not affect all countries alike. In Italy, the 
minds of men turned toward sculpture and painting ; in 
Germany, to a bold investigation of religious teachings ; 
in England, toward religion and literature. 

A second influence that helped to arouse and inspire 
was the increased knowledge of the western increased 
world. Columbus died in 1506, but now that knowledge 

1 111 -1 1 of the 

the way had been pomted out, one explorer western 
after another crossed the western seas. South continent. 
America was rounded and found to be a vast continent. 
North America was a group of islands, people thought ; 
and men set out boldly to find a channel through them, 
to discover a "Northwest Passage." Finally, Magellan's 
ship went around the world ; and, behold, the world 
was much larger than had been supposed. Before the 
wonder of this had faded from the minds of men, there 
came another amazing discovery, for Coperni- . 
cus declared, " The earth is not the centre of ings of 
the universe ; it is only a satellite of the sun." °p®'^^'="'- 
This was not accepted at once as truth, but the mere 
suggestion of it broadened men's thoughts. There was 
good reason why the world should begin to awake. 



70 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1509-1529 

40. Henry VIII and the men about him. The in- 
fluence of the Renaissance was not strongly felt in 
England before the time of Henry VIII, who came to 
the throne in 1509. Around him centred the literature 
of the early part of the century. Indeed, he himself 
attempted verse more than once. Pastime zvith Good 
Company is ascribed to him. 

Pastime with good company 
I love, and shall until I die, 
Gruche so will,* but none deny, 
So God be pleased, so live will I. 

For my pastance,^ 

Hunt, sing, and dance, 

My heart is sett ; 
All goodly sport 
To my comfort, 

Who shall me let ? ^ 

Henry VIII was no great poet, but he liked litera- 
John skei- ^^^^> and he liked to appear as its patron. His 
ton, about early tutor was one of the most prominent 

1460-1529. ,. ^ . , , , T , r-i , 

literary men of the day, the poet John Skelton. 
Skelton says : — 

The honor of Englond I lernyd to spelle 
In dygnite roialle that doth excelle. 

Skelton was a fine classical scholar, and was perfectly 
able to write smooth, easily flowing verses, but he de- 
liberately chose a rough, tumbling, headlong metre. 
He hated Cardinal Wolsey, and of him he wrote : — 

So he dothe vndermynde, 

And suche sleyghtes dothe fynde. 

That the Kynges mynde 

By hym is subuerted, 

And so streatly coarted 

*■ grudge whoso will. * pastime. * hinder 



1480-1535] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY /I 

In credensynge his tales, 
That all is but nutshales 
That any other sayth : 
He hath in him suche fayth. 

Little wonder is it that Wolsey cordially returned the 
poet's dislike. 

This harsh, scrambling metre Skelton knew how to 
adapt to more poetical thoughts. His best known poem 
is on " Phyllyp Sparowe," the pet bird of a young school- 
girl. It is of the mistress that he writes : — 

Soft and make no din, 
For now I will begin 
To have in remembrance 
Her goodly dalliance 
And her goodly pastaunce 
So sad and so demure, 
Behaving her so sure, 
With words of pleasure 
She would make to the lure 
And any man convert 
To give her his whole heart. 

Skelton was a witty man, and many of the "good 
stories " of his day were ascribed to him. It influence 
is easy to see how Henry VIII would be in- °*Skeiton. 
fluenced even as a child by the careless boldness, poeti- 
cal ability, and rollicking good nature of this man who 
was as brilliant as he was learned. No one knows how 
much of Henry's interest in poetry was due to the 
guidance of hts tutor. Elizabeth closely resembled her 
father, and must have been influenced by his love of lit- 
erature. It may be that we owe some generous part of 
the literary glory of the Elizabethan age to the half-for- 
gotten John Skelton with his "jagged" rhymes. 

41. Sir Thomas More, 1480-1535. Another friend 
of Henry VIII was Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas 



72 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1480--153S 



was so learned that when he was hardly more than a boy 
he could step upon the stage in the midst of a Latin play 
and make up a part for himself ; and he was so witty 
that his improvised jests would set the audience into 
peals of laughter. The year that Henry came to the 
throne More wrote the lives of Edward V and of Rich- 
ard III, and this was the first English historical work 
that was well arranged and written in a dignified style. 
The little book by which he is best known was writ- 
utopia. ^^" ^^ Latin and had a Greek title, Utopia, oi 
1516. "nowhere." This describes a country as More 

thought a country ought to be. In that marvellous land 
everything was valued according to its real worth. Gold 

was less useful than 
iron ; therefore the 
chains of criminals 
were made of gold. 
Kings ruled, not for 
their own glory, but 
for the sake of their 
people. No one was 
idle, and no one was 
overworked. War 
was undertaken only 
for self - defence, or 
to aid other nations 
against invasion. 
This book is interest- 
ing not only because 
it pictures what so 
brilliant a man as 
Sir Thomas More 
thought a country should be, but because it proves that 
people were thinking with a boldness and freedom that 




SIR THOMAS MORE, I480-1535 
From Holbein's Court of Henry VIII 



IS25] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 73 

would not be suppressed. In many respects More proved 
to be a true prophet, for some of the laws that he sug- 
gested became long ago a part of the British constitu- 
tion. 

42. Religious questioning. In Utopia every man 
was allowed to follow whatever religion he thought 
right. This question of religion, whether to obey the 
church implicitly or to decide matters of faith for one's 
self, was dividing Germany into two parties, and was 
arousing a vast amount of thought and discussion in 
England. Many held firmly to the old faith ; but many 
others were inclined to investigate the teachings of the 
church, and to wish to compare them with the words of 
the Bible. English had changed greatly since Wyclif's 
day, and an English scholar named William wiiuam 
Tyndale was determined that the Bible should i^^%l' 
be given to the people in the language of their 1536. 
own time. " If God spare my life," he said to a cler- 
gyman who opposed him, "ere many years I will cause 
a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the 
Scripture than thou dost." There was "no room" in 
England to make his translation, as he said, and there- 
fore Tyndale went to Germany, and in 1525 Tyndaie's 
printed with the utmost secrecy an English translation 
version of the New Testament. Some English Testament, 
merchants paid for the printing, and the books ^^^s. 
found their way over the country in spite of the king's 
opposition. The Old Testament was afterward trans- 
lated under his direction and partly by himself. 

Not more than two years after Tyndale's New Testa- 
ment was printed, Henry became bent upon securing 
a divorce from his wife, but the pope refused. Then 
Henry declared that he himself was the heaa of the 
church in England. Parliament was submissive, the 



74 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1534 

English clergy were submissive, and in 1534 the Church 
of England separated from the Church of Rome. Who- 
separation ever believed that the authority of the pope 
of England ^^^ superior to that of the king was declared 
^oni a traitor. Prominent men were not suffered 

of Rome. to hold their own opinions in quiet; and among 
1534. those who were dragged forward and com- 

pelled to say under oath whether they accepted Henry 
as the head of their church was Sir Thomas More. He 
was too honorable and truthful to assent to what he 

th ^^^ ^'^^ believe ; and King Henry, who had 

Sir Thomas claimed to feel great admiration and affection 
"'°"" for him, straightway gave the order that he 

should be executed. Tyndale, too, Henry had pursued 
even after his withdrawal to the Continent. Such was 
the treatment that this patron of literature bestowed 
upon two of the three or four best writers of English 
prose that lived during his reign. 

43. Sir Thomas Wyatt, 1503-1542, and Henry 
Howard, Earl of Surrey, about 1517-1547. At 
King Henry's court there were two men in whom every 
one who met them was interested. The elder was Sir 
Thomas Wyatt. He was a learned man, he spoke sev- 
eral languages, he was a skilful diplomatist and states- 
man. He was also a man of most charming manners, 
and was exceedingly handsome. The younger was the 
Earl of Surrey. These two men were warm friends, and 
they were both interested in poetry. Both knew well 
the Greek and Latin and Italian literatures ; and they 
appreciated not only the freedom of thought and fancy 
brought in by the Renaissance, but also the carefulness 
with which the Italian poetry as well as the classical 
was written. Why should not that same carefulness, 
that same love for not only saying a good thing but 



•553-1557] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 75 

saying it in the best way, be followed in English, they 

questioned. They were especially pleased with the Italian 

sonnet, a form of verse that needs the great- 

1 r . • • , The sonnet, 

est care and accuracy ot arrangement m its 

rhymes, the number of lines and of accents, the ending 
of the octave, the first eight lines, its connection with 
the sestet, the last six, and the summing up of the 
thought at the end.' They brought to England, not the 
glow and brilliancy of the Renaissance, but the realiza- 
tion that literary composition had definite requirements, 
that the thought was not enough, but that the form in 
which the thought was presented was also of importance. 

Surrey introduced another form of verse to the Eng- 
lish, blank verse, or, as the Italians called it, surrey's 
" free verse." It was in this style that he trans- ^wigied 
lated two books of the ^neid, smoothly and 1553. 
easily, and with a sincere appreciation not only of the 
classical beauty of form, but of the beauty of thought 
and description. 

These two men could not be long among Henry's 
courtiers without feeling both his favor and his disfavor. 
Wyatt was imprisoned on some trivial charge more than 
once, and Surrey was beheaded on a groundless accusa- 
tion of treason. For years their writings were passed 
from one to another in manuscript, for it would have 
been thought great lack of taste and delicacy to allow 
one's poems to be printed ; and not until ten years after 
Surrey's death did they come out in print. The book in 
which they appeared is known as TotteVs Mis- j^^gi-g 
cellany, a collection of short poems which was Miscellany, 
published in 1557. This book is interesting, ""' 
but it is rarely pleasant reading. It has not a touch of 

^ For a sonnet of Sir Philip Sidney's, see page 94. For one of 
Milton's, see page 142. 



76 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [i6th Cent 



humor. The poets wrote of the wretchedness and mu- 
tability of the world. The love-poems were especially- 
doleful. The lover complains — "complains" is the 
favorite word — of his lady's absence ; he laments " how 
unpossible it is to find quiet " in his love. Yet even on 
so lugubrious a subject as " The lover complains of the 
unkindness of his love," Wyatt is beautiful and grace- 
ful. He writes : — 

My lute, awake ! perform the last 
Labour that thou and I shall waste ; 
And end that I have now begun : 
And when this song is sung and past, 
My lute, be still, for I have done. 

44. Masques and Interludes. While Skelton was 
preparing the way for satire, 
while Tyndale and Sir Thomas 
More were writing excellent 
prose, while Wyatt and Surrey 
were teaching English poets 
not only how to write sonnets 
and blank verse, but also that 
the form of a poem should be d 

as carefully watched as the ^ .\^^' f^f 
outline and coloring of a pic- ^'^ / ^ 
ture, the drama was not for- Vjf. 

gotten. Mysteries and moral- 
ities still flourished, but these 
were not sufficiently entertain- 
ing for Henry VHI and his 
merry court. Two kinds of 
Masaues P^^^ys came into great a masquer 

favor, the masques and 
the interludes. Masques were at first only dumb shows, 
or pantomimes In one of them a mock castle was seen. 




T6th Cent] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 77 

from whose windows six ladies in gorgeous raiment 
looked forth. The king and five knights in even more 
brilliant attire appeared and besieged the castle. When 
the ladies could no longer resist, they came down, flung 
open the gates, and joined their besiegers in a merry- 
dance. At the close of the dance, each maiden led her 
knight into the castle, which was then drawn swiftly out 
of sight. There is little to tell about a masque ; but 
with the opportunity to display gracefulness and beauty 
and magnificence and skill in the use of arms, there 
must have been enough to see to amuse even the merry 
young king. 

The second kind of entertainment that was enjoyed 
by king and nobles was the interludes which were acted 

between the courses of feasts or at festivals. 

™, ,■,,., , , , , Interludes. 

They are a little like real plays because they 

are in dialogue, and they are a little like moralities 
because they sometimes introduce the Vice and other 
abstract characters. Here the resemblance to the mo- 
rality ends, for they are often full of wild merriment 
and jest. The one best known is TJie Foiire P's : a very 
Mery Enterlude of a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Potecary, 
and a Pedlar. Each one tells such big stories of what 
he has seen and done that finally the pedlar declares that 
they are all liars, and that he will give the palm to the 
one who can tell the biggest lie. Probably the audience 
listened with roars of laughter as one attempt followed 
another. The dialogue was rough and sometimes coarse, 
but it was easy and natural, and it was preparing the 
way for the graceful wit and the flowing speech of the 
Elizabethan stage. John Heywood was the . j^ „ 
author of The Foiire P's. Sir Thomas More wood, died 
had introduced him to the king, and he re- ^^^^' 
tnained in the royal favor long after More had been put 



78 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1547 

to death, rising from some humble position in which he 
served his sovereign for eight pence a day to that of 
special provider of amusements for the court. 

45. The first English comedy, Ralph Roister Dois- 
ter, probably 1552 or 1553. Henry VIII died in 
1547, and during the six years that the boy Edward VI 
was on the throne, the first English comedy made its 
appearance. English scholars were still deeply inter- 
ested in the classics, and the comedies of Plautus had 
been played at court many years before. This first Eng 
lish comedy was written by an English schoolmaster 

and clergvman named Nicholas Udall. He was 
Nicholas °-' 

Udall, died the author of some dignified translations from 

^^^^' the Latin, and his play, Ralph Roister Doister, 

is modelled on the plays of Plautus. The hero, Ralph 
himself, is a conceited simpleton, upon whom Merrygreek, 
a hanger-on, plays tricks without number. Ralph is 
bent upon marrying "a widow worth a thousand pound," 
and here Merrygreek plays his worst prank. A scriv 
ener has written a love-letter for Ralph, part of which 
reads : — 

Yf ye will be my wife, 
Ye shall be assured for the time of my life, 
I wyll keep you right well : from good raiment and fare 
Ye shall not be kept: but in sorrowe and care 
Ye shall in no wyse Hue : at your owne libertie, 
Doe and say what ye lust : ye shall neuer please me 
But when ye are merrie : I will bee all sadde 
When ye are sorie : I wyll be very gladde 
When ye seek your heartes ease: I will be vnkinde 
At no time. In me shall ye muche gentlenesse finde. 

Merrygreek reads this letter to the widow, and changes 
the punctuation so as to give it exactly the opposite 
meaning and arouse the wrath of Dame Custance. It 
hardly seems possible that instead of such labored jest' 



1562] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 79 

ing as this we shall have in less than fifty years the 
light, witty merriment of Shakespeare's Portia ; but the 
days of Queen Elizabeth were at hand, and in that mar- 
vellous time all things came to pass. 

46. The first English tragedy, Gorboduc, 1662. In 
1558, Queen Elizabeth came to the throne. There was 
much rejoicing on the part of the nation, and yet not 
all was happiness and harmony in England. The coun- 
try was poor ; it had few if any friends ; Catholics and 
Protestants quarrelled bitterly ; supporters of Elizabeth 
and supporters of Mary Stuart were sometimes almost 
at swords' points. It was fitting that the first signifi- 
cant literary work of Elizabeth's reign should owe its 
origin to a realization of the condition of af- Thomas 
fairs. This work was a drama, the first Eng- ^gg^'^^®' 
lish tragedy. Its authors were Thomas Sack- I6O8. 
ville and Thomas Norton, two young men of the Inner 
Temple. In 1561, the members of the Inner Temple 
were to have a grand Christmas celebration Thomas 
twelve days long, and these two young men de- ^°^^^' 
termined to write a play to show what disasters i584. 
might befall a disunited nation. This play was called at 
first Gorboduc, later Ferrex and Porrex. It was modelled 
upon the work of the Latin author, Seneca, who was 
much read in England, but the plot was based upon 
an old British legend of a kingdom's discord. 

King Gorboduc divides his kingdom between his two 
sons, Porrex and Ferrex. Porrex slays his brother. 
Their mother kills Porrex. The people rise and kill 
both Gorboduc and the queen, and the story ends with 
a long speech on the dangers of such a situation. So 
many horrors are piled upon horrors that the play seems 
like a burlesque ; but it was no burlesque in the days of 
Its first appearance. Learned councillors and other great 



8o ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1562 

folk of the kingdom listened with the utmost serious- 
ness, and the queen sent a command that it should be 
repeated at court. 

Gorboduc is in several ways quite different from Ralph 
Roister Doister. In the first place, it is connected with 
DHferencd ^'^^ masques in that it has pantomime, for 
between there is a "dumb show" before each act, fore- 
andRa^ph shadowing what is to come ; for instance; be- 
Roister fQj-g ^^g division of the kingdom between the 
two sons, the fable is shown of the bundle of 
sticks which could not be broken until they were sep- 
arated. Before the murder of Ferrex, a band of mourn- 
ers clad in black walk solemnly across the stage three 
times. At the end of each act a " Chorus," that is, a 
single actor in a long black robe, appears and moralizes 
on the events of the act. Again, Ralph Roister Doister 
was written in rhyming couplets, while the new tragedy 
was written in the blank verse which Surrey had intro- 
duced from Italy. It was not very agreeable blank 
verse, however, as it came from the pens of the two 
young Templars, for there is a pause at the end of al- 
most every line, and the monotony is somewhat tire- 
some ; for instance : — 

Within one land one single rule is best ; 
Divided reigns do make divided hearts : 
But peace preserves the country and the prince. 

47. Increasing strength of England. One reason 
for the popularity of Gorboduc was that Englishmen 
were beginning to realize more strongly than ever be- 
fore that the country was theirs. The queen loved her 
land and her subjects, and the people of England were 
quick to feel the new sense of harmony between the 
ruler and the ruled. England became rapidly stronger. 



reth Cent.] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 8l 

Her sea-captains sailed fearlessly into the Arctic and 
Pacific Oceans. More than this, they sailed straight 
into Spanish harbors and burned the merchant vessels 
lying at anchor ; and they lay in wait for Spanish ships 
coming from the New World, captured them, and bore 
their vast treasure of gold and silver back to England. 
There was no enemy to guard against except Spain, and 
even toward Spain England grew more and more fear- 
less. 

All this audacious freedom was reflected in the liter- 
ature of the time, especially in the boldness with which 
English writers attempted anything and every- uterary 
thing. This boldness was something entirely '"'idness. 
new in religious writings. Every middle-aged man in 
England could remember three religious revolutions, 
three times within the space of less than a quarter of a 
century when men who had not changed their faith to 
agree with that of their sovereign had been in danger of 
death at the stake. Religious poems had been careful 
and timid, but now they became frank and cheerful. 
Great numbers of ballads were written, but few of them 
were as good as the old ones ; for their chief object now 
was to tell of some recent event, that is, to be news- 
papers rather than poems. Of translations there seemed 
no end, translations not only from the Greek and Latin, 
but also from the Italian, for Italy was still the land of 
culture and light. The Celtic love for stories could now 
be satisfied, for there were tales and romances from 
Italy, from the wonder-book of early English history, 
and even from the legends of Spain. The stories told 
by returning sea-captains were not to be scorned, throb- 
bing with life as they were, glowing with pictures of the 
strange new world, and thrilling with wild encounters on 
the sea 



82 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1579 

48. The early Elizabethan drama. It was not 
enough to hear stories told. In that age of action, peo- 
ple must see things done ; and the drama flourished 
more and more. Theatres were built, the first in 1576. 
The queen was very fond of the drama, and this in itself 
was a great encouragement, for Elizabeth was England, 
and England was Elizabeth. All kinds of dramas flour- 
ished. The mystery plays were not yet given up ; mo- 
ralities, comedies, tragedies, and all sorts of mongrel 
dramas appeared. The metre employed was in quite as 
uncertain a state ; for these bold writers of plays were 
ready to try everything. Sometimes they imitated the 
blank verse of Gorbodiic ; sometimes they followed such 
metreless metre as these lines from Ralph Roister 
Doister : — 

Ye may not speake with a faint heart to Custance, 
But with a lusty breast and countenance. 

Sometimes lines of seven accents were tried, sometimes 
lines of five, sometimes of ten, and sometimes there was 
no attempt at metre, but the play was written in prose. 
The years rolled on rapidly. The sixties were past, 
the seventies were nearly gone. In 1579, the special 
The need need of English literature was form. Both 
oiiorm. prose and poetry needed the finish and care- 
fulness of which Wyatt and Surrey had been the apos- 
tles. In 1579 and 1580, three new writers arose, who 
laid before the lovers of poetry fresh and winning exam- 
ples of what might be accomplished by poetic thought 
united with careful form. These three writers were 
John Lyly, Edmund Spenser, and Sir Philip Sidney. 

49. John Lyly, 1564 7-1606. Hardly anything is 
known of John Lyly before 1579 save that he was a uni- 
versity man and attached to the court. His first book, 



:S79] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 83 

Euphucs, that is, " the well endowed by nature," was 
long looked upon as a model for polite conversation, and 
affected the style of writing of all literary Eng- Buphuos, 
land for many years. It has a slender thread of i^^a. 
story whereon are hung various moral and educational 
ideas. So far there is nothing unusual in it. Its pecul- 
iarity lay in its style. Lyly uses the balanced sentence 
to excess, stiffens it with alliteration, and loads it down 
with similes, a large proportion of them drawn from a 
half-fabulous natural history. One of his sentences is: — 

If Trauailers in this our age were . . . as willing to reap profit 
by their paines as they are to endure perill for their pleasure, they 
would either prefer their own soyle before a strange Land or good 
counsell before their owne conceyte. 

Another sentence declares : — 

As the Egle at euery flight looseth afether, which maketh hir bald 
in hir age : so the trauailer in euery country looseth some fleece, 
which maketh him a beggar in his youth. 

This affected manner of talking and writing fell in 
with the whim of the age, and was soon the height of the 
fashion. Foolish and unnatural as it seems, it ^dyantages 
brought to English prose precisely what that of euphu- 
prose needed, that is, a plan for each sentence. ^^' 
Far too many a writer, not only in King Alfred's time 
but long afterward, had plunged into his sentences with 
the utmost audacity, trusting to luck to bring him out ; 
but whoever wrote in euphuistic fashion was obliged to 
plan his sentences and choose his words. 

Euphuism was only one of the little affectations of 
style that influenced the literature of Elizabethan times. 
Throughout the rest of the century and far into the next 
one poetic disguise after another was welcomed. 

50. Edmund Spenser, 1552-1599. One of the most 
popular of these disguises was the pastoral, wherein the 



84 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1579 

characters are spoken of as shepherds and shepherdesses. 
They have the sheep and the crook, but in 
their thought they are anything but simple 
shepherds. The first of these pastorals was written by 
Edmund Spenser, and is called The Shepherd' s Calendar. 
TheShep- Spenser was a London boy, who began to write 
herd's cai- poetry in his school-days, but almost nothing 
dar. 1579. ^j^^ j^ known of him until he wrote this poem. 
Before it was quite completed, he met one of the most 
interesting young men of the age, Sir Philip Sidney, 
and was invited to his home at Penshurst, From the 
first the two young men were very congenial. Tradi- 
tion says they spent day after day under the beech- 
trees, reading the works of the old Greek philosophers' 
and talking of poetry. When TJie Shepherd V Calendar 
was published, it was dedicated to Sidney, — 

To him that is the president 
Of noblesse and of chevalree. 

The Calendar is a collection of poems, one for each 
month of the year. They are not at all alike. One, of 
course, was in praise of the queen ; but there were fables, 
satires, and allegory, besides the five poems that pertain 
strictly to country life. For February there is a story 
of a "bragging brere," or briar rose, who takes it upon 
him to scold a grand old oak for being in his way, and 
appeals to the husbandmen to cut it down, for he says 
it is 

Hindering with his shade my lovely light, 
And robbing me of the swete sonnes sight. 

The oak is hewn down ; but when winter is come, 
the brere, too, meets his death, for now he has not the 
shelter and support of the oak that he scorned. For 
August there is a merry little roundelay about the meet 



1579] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 85 

ing of shepherd " Willie " with shepherdess " Perigot." 
So it is that Spenser describes his heroine: — 

Well decked in a frocke of gray, 

Hey ho gray is greete, 
And in a kirtle of greene say, 

The greene is for maidens meete. 
A chapelet on her head she wore, 

Hey ho chapelet, 
Of sweete violets therein was store, 

She sweeter than the violet. 
My sheep did leave theyr wonted foode, 

Hey ho seely sheepe, 
And gazed on her, as they were wood,' 

Woode as he, that did them keepe. 

These poems of Spenser's were so much better than 
any others written since Chaucer's day that The "new 
all the lovers of poetry were interested, and ''"*■" 
Spenser was often spoken of as the "new poet." Ha 
was without means, and by in- 
fluence of his friends a govern- 
ment position was obtained 
for him in Ireland. A few 
months before he went on 
board the vessel that was to 
bear him across the Irish Sea, 
he wrote to an old school 
friend to return a little pack- 
age of manuscript which had 
been lent him to read, and 
" whyche I pray you heartily 
send me with al expedition," 
he said. The little package was to return to England 
some ten years later, but much was to happen in the 
literary world before that came to pass. 
' mad. 




EDMUND SPENSER 
1552-1599 



86 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1580 

In the first place, pastorals became so much the fash- 
ion that there was even a rewriting of old poems, so 
The pastoral that "youths and maidens " might appear as 
lashion. "swains and nymphs" or as "shepherds and 
shepherdesses." EjtpJiues was not a pastoral, but its 
smoothness and careful attention to sound were in full 
accord with this mode of writing. Soon after Spenser 
had gone to Ireland, his friend, Sir Philip Sidney, wrote 
a book that was almost equally smooth. It was written 
merely for amusement and to please the Countess of 
Pembroke, his favorite sister, but for more than three 
hundred years it has pleased almost every one who has 
read it. 

51. Sir Philip Sidney, 1554-1586. Sir Philip be- 
longed to a noble family ; he received every advantage 
of education and travel ; he was of so singularly sweet 
a nature and so brilliant an intellect that he was loved 
and admired by every one who knew him. Yet he was 
not at all spoiled, he felt only the more eager to prove 
himself worthy of this love and admiration. When only 
twenty-three, he was sent to Prague as the ambassador 
of his country. He was even thought to be a fit candi- 
date for the throne of Poland, but here Queen Elizabeth 
said no. " I will not brook the loss of the jewel of my 
dominions," declared this autocratic sovereign. 

Sir Philip's book was named Arcadia, or as it was 
usually called. The Countess of Pembroke s Arcadia. It 
Arcadia, is a kind of pastoral romance, wherein young 
written yxiQ,n and maidens wander about in a beautiful 

1580-81, 

published forest. They fall in love with one another ; 
1590. they kill lions ; they carry on war with the 

Helots of Greece ; they are taken by pirates and have 
encounters with bears ; and all this occurs in a fabulous 
country, a wilderness of faerie. The very story is a 



iS8o] 



SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 



^7 



wilderness. There is no especial plot, and the charac- 
ters are not drawn like real men and women. But why 
should they be so drawn } They are half-enchanted 
wanderers roaming on happily through a magical forest 
Page after page Sid- 
ney wrote, never 
stopping for revi- 
sion, rambling on 
wherever his fancy 
led ; with the loved 
sister beside him 
slipping away each 
leaf, as his pen 
traced the bottom 
line, to see what 
had come next in 
the fascinating tale 
of faerie. Even the 
sound of the words 
is charming. The 
sentences are often 
long, but clear and 
graceful and musi- 
cal. There is more 
than mere pleasant- 
ness of sound in the Arcadia, however, for it is full of 
charming bits of description, and of true and noble 
thoughts. Here is the merry little shepherd boy, "pip- 
ing as though he should never grow old." Here is "a 
place made happy by her treading." Here, too, "They 
laid them down by the murmuring music of certain 
waters." It is but a picture of himself when Sidney 
writes, " They are never alone that are accompanied with 
noble thoughts," and " Keep yourself in heart with joyful- 




SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 
I554-1586 



88 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1590 

ness." One of his friends said long after the author's 
death that Sidney had intended to rewrite his book and 
make it into an English romance with King Arthur for 
its hero; but it is so graceful and charming in its present 
form that no one could wish to have it made over. 

The Arcadia was handed about in manuscript from 
one friend to another. Wherever it was read, it was 
Themis- praised and imitated, but it was not printed 
ceiianies. till 1 590. Printing was for common folk, not 
for nobles and courtiers ; and the lovers of poetry were 
in the habit of making manuscript books of their favor- 
ite poems. Before the end of the century, however, 
some of these books did come to the printing-press. As 
if to console them for their humiliation, most high- 
sounding titles were given them, and we have The Para- 
dise of Dainty Devices, Brittoiis Bower of Delights, The 
Phetiixs Nest, England's Helicon, etc. 

52. Later Elizabethan drama. It was the time of 
the pastoral, but hundreds of sonnets were being written 
and passed about in manuscript. Besides this, the drama 
was almost ready to burst forth with a magnificence of 
which no one could have dreamed who had seen only 
the crude attempts of less than half a century earlier. 
Scores of plays had been written. They were good 
plays, too, wonderfully far in advance of the previous 
attempts. Many of them were well worth acting, and 
are well worth reading to-day ; even though the writers 
had not yet adopted a standard verse, and had not mas- 
tered the art of making their characters live, that is, of 
making a character show just such changes at the end 
of the play as a human being would show if he had been 
through such experiences as those delineated. This 
was the greatest lack in these dramas. Their greatest 
beauty lay in the little songs scattered through the 



c579-i6o3] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 89 

scenes. In the Elizabethan days everybody loved music 
and everybody sang. Servants were chosen songs in 
with an ear to their voices, that they might be ^^^ dramas 
able to join in a glee or a catch. The words of the songs 
must be musical ; but the Elizabethans demanded even 
more than this. Poetry was plentiful, and the songs 
must be real poetry. Therefore it was that such dainty 
little things appeared as Apelles' Song: — 

Cupid and my Campaspe played 

At cards for kisses, — Cupid paid ; 

He stakes liis quiver, bow and arrows, g^ 

His motlier's doves and team of sparrows : 

Loses them too ; then down he throws 

The coral of his lip, the rose 

Growing on 's cheek (but none knows how); 

With these the crystal of his brow, 

And then the dimple of his chin : 

All these did my Campaspe win. 

At last he set her both his eyes ; 

She won, and Cupid blind did rise. 

O Love, has she done this to thee ? 

What shall, alas ! become of me ? 

This song is in Lyly's play of Alexander and Cam- 
paspe, for the famous euphuist wrote a handful of plays 
which were presented before the queen. He j,eedofa 
wrote in prose, but some makers of plays standard 
employed rhyme, some blank verse, and some 
a mingling of all three. There was great need of a stand- 
ard verse suited to the requirements of the drama, a 
line not so short as to suggest doggerel, and not so long 
as to be cumbersome and unwieldy. Blank verse was 
perhaps slowly gaining ground, but before it could be 
generally accepted as the most fitting mode of dramatic 
expression, some writer must use it so skilfully as to 
show its power, its music, and its adaptability. 



90 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1587-1592 

53. Christoplier Marlowe, 1564-1593. Such a writer 
was Christopher, or "Kit," Marlowe, one of the "uni- 
versity wits," as one group of playwrights was called, 
because nearly all of them had been connected with one 
or the other of the great universities. He is thought 
to have lived in somewhat Bohemian fashion, but little 
is certainly known of his life save that he took his 
degree at Cambridge. His Tamburlaine was acted in 
1587 or 1588. Plve years later, Marlowe died; but in 
those five years he wrote at least three plays, the Jew 
of Malta, the Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, and 
Edward II, which showed what magnificent use could 
be made of blank verse. 

In his prologue to Tamburlaine he promises to lead 
his audience " from jigging veins of rhyming mother 
Tambur- wits," and he keeps his promise nobly. The 
1687 or Scythian hero, Tamburlaine, is a shepherd who 
1588. becomes the conqueror of sovereigns. One 

scene was the laughing-stock of the time, that in which 
Tamburlaine enters, drawn in his chariot by two captive 
kings with bits in their mouths. Marlowe had no sense 
of humor to keep him from such an absurdity ; his mis- 
Triumph oi ^^'^^ ^^^ ^° S^'^^ ^^^ poets some idea of what 
blank might be done with blank verse ; and those 

who laughed loudest listened with admiration 
to such lines as these : — 

Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend 
The wondrous architecture of the world, 
And measure every wandering planet's course, 
Still climbing after knowledge infinite, 
And always moving as the restless spheres, 
Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest, 
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all, 
That perfect bliss and sole felicity, 
The sweet fruition of an earthly crown. 



1580-1590] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 91 

Remembering that the speaker is Tamburlaine, the hea- 
then shepherd, to whom a throne is the loftiest glory that 
imagination can reach, there is no bathos in the closing 
line. The only fault is in the use of the word "earthly." 
Marlowe knew well how to use proper names in his 
verse ; and Queen Elizabeth, with her love of music and 
her equal love of the magnificence of the royal estate, 
must have enjoyed : — 

And ride in triumph through PersepoHs ? 
Is it not brave to be a king, Techelles? 
Usumcasene and Theridamas, 
Is it not passing brave to be a king, 
And ride in triumph through PersepoHs ? 

Marlowe could write lightly and gracefully, as in his 
** Come live with me and be my love." Then he is 
charming, but it is his power rather than his grace that 
lingers in the mind. More than once there are such 
lines as, — 

Weep not for Mortimer, 
That scorns the world, and, as a traveller. 
Goes to discover countries yet unknown, — 

lines that might well have come from the pen of Shake- 
speare. These are from the closing scene of Edivard II, 
Marlowe's last and finest play. 

54. Events from 1580 to 1590. So the years passed 
in England from 1580 to 1590, but one poet, Spenser, 
was shut away from the literary life of his countrymen, 
which was becoming every day more glorious. A castle 
and a vast tract of land in Ireland had been given him, 
and there he dwelt and wrote ; but all the time he felt 
like a prisoner, and he called his Irish home "that waste 
where I was quite forgot." When he came from Ireland 
in 1589 or 1590 to pay a visit to England, he found sev- 
eral changes. Mary Queen of Scots had been beheaded, 



92 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [irqo 

and the most timid Protestant no longer feared revolu- 
tion and a Roman Catholic sovereign. The Spanish 
A.rmada had been conquered by the bravery of English 
captains and the tempests of the heavens ; England was 
mistress of the seas, and her bold mariners were free to 
go where they would. The thoughts of many were turn- 
ing toward the New World, and Sir Walter Raleigh had 
even attempted to found a colony across the seas. One 
note of sadness mingled with the joy of the nation. Sir 
Death oi Philip Sidney was dead, and was mourned by a 
sirPhiup whole kingdom. The bravery with which he 

^"'^" met the enemy in the fatal battle of Zutpheji, 
the self-forgetful courtesy with which he refused, until 
another should have drunk, the water that would have 
eased his suffering, the gentle patience with which he 
bore the long weeks of agony before the coming of the 
end, — all this touched the English heart as it had never 
before been touched. So enduring was the love which 
he inspired that Fulke Greville, one of his boyhood com- 
panions, who outlived him by twenty-two years, asked 
that on his own tomb might be written, " Servant to 
Queen Elizabeth, Councillor to King James, and Friend 
to Sir Philip Sidney." Sidney requested that his Arcadia 
should be destroyed, but his sister could not bear to 
fulfil such a wish, and in 1590, while Spenser was in 
England, it was printed. 

55. The Faerie Queene. Spenser brought with him 
Books I- from Ireland the little package that he had car- 
m, 1590. ^j^ J away, now grown much larger. Sir Wal- 



iiv- 

VI, 1596. ter Raleigh had visited him, and as they sat 
under the alders by the river, Spenser had read aloud the 
first three books of the Faerie Qtieene, for these were in 
the precious little package. The poem was published in 
1 590, It begins : — 



590.1 



SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 



93 



A gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine, 
Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde, 
Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine, 
The cruell markes of many a bloody fielde ; 
Yet armes till that time did he never wield : 
His angry steede did chide his foming bitt, 
As much disdayning to the curbe to yield : 
Full iolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt, 
As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt. 

This " gentle knight " represented Holiness, who 
was riding forth into the world to contest with Heresy. 
Spenser planned to write 
twelve books, each of 
which was to celebrate 
the victory of some vir- 
tue over its contrary 
vice. At the end of the 
twelfth book the knights 
were to return to the 
land of Faerie. King 
Arthur was then to re- 
present the embodiment 
of all these virtues, and 
he was to wed the Queen 
of Faerie, who was the 
Glory of God. Together 
with this was a very ma- 
terial allegory, if it may 
be so called, in which 
Elizabeth is the Queen 
of Faerie, Mary of Scot- 
land is Error, etc. So 
far even the double allegory is reasonably clear; but 
as the poem goes on, it wanders away and away, and is 
so mingled with other allegories and changes of char- 




THE RED CROSS KNIGHT 
From the Faerie Queene 



94 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1590-1600 

acters that it is impossible to trace a connected story 
through even the six books that were written of the 
twelve that Spenser planned. 

Tracing the story is a small matter, however. One 
need not read an imaginative poem with a biographical 
dictionary and a gazetteer. The allegory of the strug- 
gle of evil with good is beautiful ; but one need not 
trouble himself about the allegory. Read the poem 
simply for its exquisite pictures, its wonderfully rich 
and varied imagery, and the ever-changing music of its 
verse, and you will share in some degree the pleasure 
which for three hundred years Spenser has given to all 
true lovers of poetry. 

56. The decade of the sonnet, 1590-1600. From 
1590 to 1600 the sonnet was the prevailing form of the 
lyric. Sonnets were written in sequences, as they were 
called, that is, in groups, each group generally telling 
the story of the author's love for some lady fair who 
was either real or imaginary. Spenser wrote beautiful, 
Astrophei musical sonnets, but Sidney's Astrophel and 
JSJifshed' Stella, a sequence which was not published till 
1591. 1 591, gives one such a feeling that it must 

be sincere that to read it seems almost like stealing 
glances at his paper as he wrote. One of his best 
sonnets is : — 

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies ! 

How silently, and with how wan a face ! 

What, may it be that even in heavenly place 

That busy archer his sharp arrows tries ! 

Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes 

Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case, 

I read it in thy looks ; the languisht grace, 

To me, that feel the hke, thy state descries : 

Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me, 

Is constant love deem'd there but want of witr 



1594] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 95 

Are beauties there as proud as here they be ? 
Do they above love to be lov'd, and yet 
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? 
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness ? 

57. Richard Hooker, 1654 9-1600. During this 
decade an important piece of prose was written by a 
clergyman named Richard Hooker. He was a man of 
much learning, but so shy that when he was lecturing 
at Oxford he could hardly look his students in the 
face. Even his shyness could not hide his merits, and 
he was appointed to a prominent position in London. 
It was not long, however, before he wrote an earnest 
appeal to the archbishop to give him instead some hum- 
ble village parish. London was full of controversies, 
sometimes very bitter ones, between the Church of 
England and the Puritans. Hooker was far too gentle 
to meet disagreement and discord, but in his later and 
more quiet home he produced a clear, strong book called 
the Ecclesiastical Polity, which defended the Ecciesiasti- 
position of the church, giving the reasons why bmIcsi-iv 
he believed it to have the right to claim men's i594. 
obedience. Prose in plenty had been written for some 
special purpose, but this was something more than a 
mere putting of words together to express a thought; 
jt was not only an argument, it was literature, and even 
those who were not interested in its subject read it 
for the grave harmony of its style and the dignity of its 
phrasing. 

58. William Shakespeare, 1564-1616. It was in 
this same decade that the full glory of the drama was 
to burst forth. In 1564, the year of Marlowe's birth, 
a child was born in the village of Stratford on the river 
Avon who was to become the greatest of poets. His 
father, John Shakespeare, was a well-to-do man, anJ 



96 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1564-1583 

held various offices in the village. This boy, William, 
grew up much as did other boys of the place. He went 
to school, studied Latin and possibly a little Greek. 
Coventry was near, and there mystery plays were per- 
formed. Kenilworth Castle was only fifteen miles away ; 
and when Shakespeare was eleven years old. Queen 
Elizabeth was its guest. No bright boy would let such 
chances go by to see a mystery play or to have a glimpse 
of his country's queen and the entertainments given in 
her honor. In 1568, a company of London actors came 
to Stratford. John Shakespeare as bailiff gave them a 
formal welcome to the village ; and it is probable that 
among the earliest memories of his son were the sound 
of their drums and trumpets, the beating of hoofs, and 
the sight of banners and riders, of gorgeous costumes 
flashing in the sun and gayly caparisoned horses pran- 
cing down the street to the market-place. 

More than a score of times the prancing steeds and 
their riders visited Stratford ; and the country boy, 
living quietly beside the Avon, must have had many 
thoughts of the great world of London that was the 
home of those fascinating cavalcades. He would not 
have been a real boy if he had not determined to see 
that marvellous city before many years should pass. 

Not long after the festivities of Kenilworth, John 
Shakespeare began to be less successful in his business 
affairs. Thirteen or fourteen was not an early age for 
a boy to be taken from school who did not intend to go 
to the university ; and it is probable that the boy Wil- 
liam left school at that age and began to earn his own 
living. For some years from that time the only thing 
known of him is that he often crossed the fields by a 
narrow lane that led to Shottery and the cottage of Anne 
Hathaway, and that before he was nineteen she became 



1586-1588] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 97 

his wife. In 1586, the young man of twenty-two, with no 
trade, with himself and wife and three children to sup- 
port, with only dreams and courage and genius for capi- 




SHAKESPEARE'S birthplace at STRATFORD 



tal, made his way to London, possibly on horseback, but 
more probably on foot. 1586 was the year of Sidney's 
death. There could hardly be a greater inspiration 
toward honor and uprightness for a young man on his first 
visit to London than to see the whole city grieving for 
the death of one but ten years older than himself simply 
because he whom they had lost was pure and true and 
noble. 

Just what Shakespeare did during those first two years 
in London is not known, but he must have been con- 
nected in some way with the theatre and have gj^^j^^. 
won the confidence of those in control, for as speare in 
early as 1588 he was trusted to "retouch" at 
least one play. This retouching was regarded as per 



98 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1590-1594 

fectly allowable. There was no copyright law, and as 
soon as a play had been printed, any theatre had a right 
to use it, and any author had a right to alter it as he 
chose. Two years later, the unknown young man from 
the country had made a place for himself, and in 1590, 
_ the year in which Spenser brought the first 
bour'sLost, part of the Faerie Queene to London, Shake- 
speare's merry little comedy. Love s Labour 's 
Lost, was acted. This play does not reach the heights 
of tragedy, of course, or even of his later comedies, but 
it is freely and lightly drawn ; it is full of fun and frolic, 
and fairly sparkles with witty repartee. Shakespeare 
had caught the fashion of euphuism, and he made fun of 
it so merrily that its greatest devotees must have been 
amused. 

Play followed play : comedy, tragedy, history. It was 
no idle life that he led, for the writing of five or six 
plays is generally ascribed to the years 1590-1592 ; and 
it must be remembered, too, that he was actor as well as 
author. It was in 1592 that the dramatist Chettle wrote 
of his excellent acting, and said, moreover, that he had 
heard of his uprightness of dealing and his grace in 
writing. Shakespeare was no longer an unknown actor. 
Venus and He was recognized as a successful playwright, 
Adonis. and also as a poet, for his Vemis and Adojiis 
Lucreoe. and Liicrcce had won a vast amount of admira- 
1593-94. ^.Jqj-, a -pj-jg mellifluous and honey-tongued 
Shakespeare," one of the critics called him, and spoke 
with praise of his "sugerd sonnets" that were passed 
about among his friends. 

69. Historical Plays. After some merry, sparkling 
comedies, such as A Midsummer NigJif s Dream and 
The Comedy of Errors^ there came a time when the poet 
seemed fascinated by the history of his own land. In 



1596] 



SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 



99 



writing historical drama Shakespeare was never a stu- 
dent-author ; EHzabethan life moved too rapidly for much 
searching of old manuscripts and records. Shakespeare's 
special power as a dramatist of history lay in his sympa- 
thetic imagination by which he understood the men of 
bygone days. He read their motives, he pictured them 
as he could imagine himself to have been in their cir- 
cumstances and with their qualities; and more than 




WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 1564-1616 

The Chandos Portrait 



once his interpretation of some historical character, 
opposed as it was to the common belief of his time, has 
been proved by later investigation to be correct. 

Then came the Merchant of Venice and a group of 
comedies, some of which have touches of boisterous 



lOO ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1596-1600 

rant, while some are happy, romantic, and charmingly 
TheMer- graceful. In the Merchant of Venice perhaps 
v^^ce°* quite as much as in any other play, Shake- 
1596? speare shows his power to make us hold a char- 
acter in the balance. Shylock is cruel and miserly, but 
we cannot help seeing with a touch of sympathy that he 
is oppressed and lonely ; Bassanio is a careless young 
spendthrift, but so boyish and so frank that we forget 
to be severe ; Portia is perfectly conscious of the value 
of her wealth and her beauty, but at love's command she 
is ready to drop both lightly into the hands of Bassanio. 
Shakespeare's writing extended over a space of about 
twenty years, half of which time belonged to the six- 
teenth century and half to the seventeenth. If he had 
died in 1600, we should think of him as a dramatist of 
great skill in writing comedy, whether refined and 
merry or rough and somewhat boisterous, and in writing 
historical plays presenting the history of his own coun- 
try; but, save for some hint that Romeo and ynliet might 
give, we should have no idea of his unrivalled power in 
writing tragedies. Those as well as his deeper come- 
dies belonged to the following century. 

Century XVI 

SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY 

John Skelton. Thomas Norton. 

Sir Thomas More. John Lyly. 

WilHam Tyndale. Edmund Spenser. 

Sir Thomas Wyatt. Sir Philip Sidney. 

Earl of Surrey. The Elizabethan Miscellanie 

Totters Miscellany. Christopher Marlowe. 

John Heywood. Richard Hooker. 

Nicholas Udall. William Shakespeare 

Thomas Sackville. 



i6th Cent] SHAKESPEARE'S CENTURY lOI 

SUMMARY 

The minds of the English people and also their literature 
were strongly affected, first, by the Renaissance; second, by 
increased knowledge of the western world ; and, third, by the 
discovery that the earth is not the centre of the universe. 

During the reign of Henry VIII, English literature centred 
around him, John Skelton was his tutor ; Sir Thomas More 
one of his courtiers. 

Religious questions were much discussed. William Tyn- 
dale translated the New Testament. Henry's disagreement 
with the pope led to the separation of the Church of England 
from the Church of Rome. 

About the middle of the century, the courtiers Wyatt and 
Surrey introduced the Italian sonnet and the carefulness of 
Italian poetry. Surrey introduced blank verse. Their poems 
were published in TotteVs Miscellajiy. 

The drama progressed step by step. Mysteries and moral- 
ities still flourished. Masques and interludes came into favor. 
John Heywood wrote the most successful interludes. The 
first English comedy was Ralph Roister Doister, written by 
Nicholas Udall. The first English tragedy was Gorboduc, 
written by Sackville and Norton. 

In the reign of Elizabeth the power of England increased ; 
literature manifested greater boldness. Religious writings, 
translations, and stories appeared in great numbers, but the 
glory of the latter half of her reign was the drama. All species 
of drama flourished ; all kinds of metre and also prose were 
employed. The pressing needs were, first, carefulness of 
form ; and, second, an appropriate and generally accepted 
metre. A strong influence in favor of carefulness of form was 
exerted by the Eicphues of Lyly, by The Shepherd's Calendar 
of Spenser, and succeeding pastorals, and by Sidney's Ar- 
cadia and also his sonnets circulated in manuscript. 

The drama now increased rapidly in excellence, but still 
had no standard metre and did not attain to the highest suc- 
cess in the delineation of character. It contained, however. 



102 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE fi6th Cent. 

beautiful little songs. Finally, Marlowe showed the capabili- 
ties of blank verse, and this became the accepted metre. 

In 1590, the first three books of the Faerie Qiieene were pub- 
lished. During the following decade the sonnet flourished. 
Hooker wrote his Ecclesiastical Polity, and the glory of the 
drama burst forth in the works of William Shakespeare, who 
solved the great dramatic problem, how to make the charac- 
ters seem like real people. 



CHAPTER VI 

CENTURY XVn 

PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 

60. Shakespeare in the seventeenth century. In 
1603, Queen Elizabeth died and James of Scotland be- 
came the sovereign of England. The inspiration of the 
age of Elizabeth lingered for some years after her death, 
and the work of Shakespeare, its greatest glory, ex- 
tended far into the reign of James. His genius broad- 
ened and deepened, and he gave to the new century 
his deeper comedies and a superb group of tragedies, 
Hamlet, King Lear, and others. His plays grow more 
intense, more powerful. Sometimes he uses bitter irony. 
Stern retribution is visited upon both weak and wicked. 
There is a touch of gloom. Magnificent as these dramas 
are, it is good to come away from them to the ripple 
of the sea, to the breeze of the meadow land, to his last 
group of plays, the joyous and beautiful romantic dramas, 
such as the Winters Tale, Cymbeline, and, last of all, 
it may be. The Tempest, that marvellous production in 
which a child may find a fairy tale, a philosopher suggest 
tion and mystery and that " solemn vision " of life thai 
comes in the midst of the wonders of the magic island. 

When Shakespeare's sonnets were written and to 
whom they were written is not known. If the ^^^ 
whole aim of their author had been to puzzle soiuiets. 
his readers, he could not have succeeded better. Some 
seem to have been written to a man, others to a woman. 



I04 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [17th Cent 

Some are exquisitely beautiful, some are fairly rollicking 
in boyish mischievousness. Some express sincere love, 
some are apparently trying to see how far a roguish 
mock devotion can be concealed by charm of phrase 
and rhythm. Here are such perfect lines as 

Bare, ruin'd choirs, wliere late the sweet birds sang. 
Here is his honest 

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, 
Coral is far more red than her lips' red, — 

wherein he makes fun of the poetic rhapsodies of Eliza- 
bethan lovers. Here, too, is his mischievous sonnet, 
which pictures — though in most musical language — a 
woman chasing a hen, while her deserted lover begs her 
to come back and be a mother to him ! These sonnets 
were published without their author's permission, and 
he took no step to explain them. Every student of the 
poet's work has his own interpretation. Which is cor- 
rect, Shakespeare alone could tell us. 

Shakespeare is the world's greatest poet. His genius 
consists, first, in reading men and women better than 

Shake- ^'^Y ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ them, in knowing 
speare's what a person of certain traits would do under 
genus. certain circumstances, and how the scenes 
through which that person passed would affect his char- 
acter ; second, in his ability to express that knowledge 
with such perfection of form and such brilliancy of im 
agination as has never been equalled ; third, in the fact 
that his power both to read and to express was sus- 
tained. The dramatists who preceded him and those 
who worked by his side often had flashes and gleams of 
insight and momentary powers of expression that were 
worthy of him ; but the power to see clearly throughout 
the five acts of a play and to express with equal excel 



i597-i6ii] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 105 

lence and consistency the character of the clown and of 
the king was not theirs. 

Wilham Shakespeare was no supernatural being; he 
was a very human man. Certainly he never thought of 
himself as sitting on a pinnacle manufacturing 
English classics. He threw himself into his speareas 
poetry, but he never forgot that he was writing ^™^''' 
plays for people to act and for people to see. No really 
good work of literature flows from the pen without 
thought. Shakespeare worked very rapidly, but the 
thinking was done at some time, either when he took up 
his pen or beforehand. He was a straightforward busi- 
ness man, who paid his debts and intended that what 
was due to him should be paid. He loved his early 
home and planned, perhaps from the time that he left it, 
to return to Stratford. Money came to him rapidly, 
especially after 1599, when the Globe Theatre was built, 
in which he seems to have owned a generous share. 
Two years earlier he had been able to buy New Place 
in Stratford, and about 161 1 he returned to his native 
town. A vast change it must have been to the man 
whose dramas had won the admiration of the people and 
of their queen, to come to a quiet village now grown so 
puritanical that its council had solemnly decreed that 
the acting of plays within its limits should be regarded 
as an unlawful deed. He was away from his London 
friends and their brilliant meetings at the Mermaid Inn 
of which one of them, Francis Beaumont, wrote : — 
What things have we seen 

Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been 

So nimble and so full of subtle flame, 

As if that everyone from whence they came 

Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, 

And had resolved to live a fool the rest 

Of his dull life. 



I06 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1552-1618 

No word of complaint or of loneliness has come down 
to us. In Stratford were his wife, his two daughters, 
and the little granddaughter, Elizabeth. There are tra- 
ditions of visits from his old friends. He had wealth, 
fame, the home of his choice. In the village of his birth 
the poet died in 1616, and was buried in the church that 
still stands beside the river Avon. 

61. Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552-1618. Wonderful peo- 
ple were those Elizabethans ; for every one seemed to 
be able to do everything. Perhaps the best example of 
the man of universal ability is Sir Walter Raleigh, an 
explorer, a colonizer, the manager of a vast Irish estate, 
a vice-admiral, a captain of the guard, and a courtier 
whose flattery could delight even so well flattered a 
woman as Queen Elizabeth. Moreover, when King 
James imprisoned him under a false charge of treason, 
this soldier and sailor and colonizer became an author 
Raleigh's and produced among other writings a History 
thewlrid ^f^^^^ World. He tells the story clearly and 
1614. pleasantly. Sometimes he is eloquent, some- 
times poetical ; e. g. he speaks of the Roman Empire as 
a tree standing in the middle of a field. " But after some 
continuance," he says, " it shall begin to lose the beauty 
it had ; the storms of ambition shall beat her great 
boughs and branches one against another ; her leaves 
shall fall off, her limbs wither, and a rabble of barbarous 
nations enter the field and cut her down," 

Several of the literary giants who began their work in 
the days of Queen Elizabeth are counted as of the times 
of James. The greatest of these were the philosopher 
Francis Bacon and the dramatist Ben Jonson. 

62. Francis Bacon, 1561-1626. Francis Bacon seems 
to have been "grown up" from his earliest childhood. 
He was the son of Elizabeth's Lord Keeper, and it is said 



iS6i-i597] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS lO/ 

that as a boy his dignity and intelligence delighted hef 
Majesty so much that she often questioned him on all 
sorts of subjects to see what he would answer. One day 
when she asked how old he was, he replied with all the 
readiness of an experienced courtier, " I am two years 
younger than your Majesty's happy reign." When he 
was little more than a youth, he declared gravely that he 
had " taken all knowledge " for his province. In most 
young men this would have been an absurd speech, but in 
view of what Bacon actually accomplished it seems hardly 
more than the truth. He was only thirteen when he en- 
tered the university, but during his three years of resi- 
dence, this boy put his finger on the weak spot in the 
teaching and study of the day. The whole aim seemed 
to be, he declared, not to discover new truths, but to go 
over and over the old ones. 

Nothing would have pleased him better than to have 
means enough to live comfortably while he thought and 
wrote, but he had no fortune. " I must think how to 
live," he said, " instead of living only to think." The 
young man of eighteen looked about him, and concluded 
to study law and try to win the patronage of the queen. 
In his legal studies he was so successful that his reason- 
ing and eloquence were equally pleasing ; but the queen's 
patronage was beyond his reach, for she would give him 
only just enough favor to keep him ever hoping for 
more. 

In the midst of his disappointments he wrote ten 
essays, which were published in 1597. They were on 
such subjects as Study, Expense, Followers Essays, 
and Friends, Reputation, etc., and they seemed ib97. 
in many respects more like the reflections of a man of 
sixty-three than one of thirty-six. They are so full of 
wisdom, and the wisdom is expressed so clearly and 



I08 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1603-1621 

definitely, that some parts of them seem almost like a 
sequence of proverbs. Among the sentences most quoted 
are these : — 

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some 
few to be chewed and digested ; that is, some books are to be read 
only in parts ; others to be read, but not curiously ; and some few 
to be read wholly and with diligence and attention. . . . Reading 
maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact 
man. 

After James came to the throne, Bacon was raised 
from one position to another, until at last he became 
Bacon Lord High Chancellor. He lived with the ut- 

LordHigh "lost magnificence; he had fame, wealth, rank, 
Chanceiier. and the favor of his sovereign. He had also 
enemies, and before three years had passed, a charge 
of accepting bribes was brought against him. He was 
declared guilty ; but his real guilt was far less than that 
of such a deed if done two centuries later ; for the ac- 
ceptance of bribes, or gifts, by men in high legal posi- 
tions was a custom of long standing. No attempt was 
made to show that these gifts had made him decide even 
one cause unjustly. 

Bacon's public life was ended, but it is quite possible 
that the few years which remained to him were his happi- 
est, for, living quietly with his family, he had at last the 
leisure for thought for which he had longed. Sometime 
before this he had published more essays, and he had 
instanratio already begun the great work of his life, the In- 
Kagna. stauratio Magna, that is, the "great institution " 
of true philosophy. This undertaking was the outgrowth 
of his boyish criticism of Oxford. He planned that the 
work should give a summary of human knowledge in all 
branches and should point out a system by which advance- 
ment might be made. The philosophers of the day were 



i6li-i62o] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS IO9 

satisfied with words rather than things ; in seeking for 
knowledge of nature, for instance, it seemed to them the 
proper scholastic method, not to study nature herself but 
to reason out what seemed to be a fitting law. j^^^^j^ 
In Bacon's Novum Orgamim, or " new instru- Organum. 
ment," he taught that in the study of nature, or 
in the study of the action of the human mind, men ought, 
first, to notice how nature and the mind worked, and from 
this knowledge to derive general laws. The former way 
of reasoning was called deductive, i. e., first make the rule 
and then explain the facts by it. Bacon's philosophy was 
inductive, i. e., first collect examples and from them form 
a rule. Inductive reasoning was not original with Bacon 
by any means. His glory lies in his eliminating all inac- 
curate, worthless notions, and in his firm belief that all 
reasoning should lead to advancement of knowledge and 
£0 practical good. He said, " I have held up a light . . . 
which will be seen centuries after I am dead ; " and he 
was right, for it is according to his system that all pro- 
gress in laws, in commerce, and in science has been 
made. 

63. The " King James version " of the Bible, 1611. 
Bacon wrote in Latin because he believed that, while 
English might pass away, Latin would live forever ; but 
in 161 1, while he was coming to this decision, the Bible 
was again translated, and the translation was so excellent 
and later events made its reading so universal, that this 
one book alone would almost have saved the English lan- 
guage, if there had been any possibility of its being for- 
gotten. This version was the one which is now in gen- 
eral use, the "authorized version," or the " King James 
version," as it is called. Simply as a piece of literature, 
it is of priceless value. The sonorous rhythm of the 
Psalms, the dignified simplicity of the Gospels, the 



no ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [i573-i597 

splendid imagery of the Revelation, — all these are ex- 
pressed in clear, concise, and often beautiful phrase, 
whose influence on the last three hundred years of 
English literature cannot be too highly esteemed. 

64. Ben Jonson, 1573 9-1637. When Shakespeare 
returned to Stratford he left London full of playwrights. 
Many of them had great talent in some one line. Ford 
and Webster had special power in picturing sorrow and 
suffering ; Beaumont and Fletcher, who worked to- 
gether, constructed their plots with unusual skill and 
wrote most exquisite little songs ; Chapman has many 
graceful, beautiful passages ; Dekker, as Charles Lamb 
said, had " poetry enough for anything : " but there was 
no second Shakespeare. He stood alone, better than 
all others in all respects. The playwright who stood 
nearest to him in greatness was Ben Jonson. He was 
nine years younger than Shakespeare. He was a Lon- 
don boy, and knew little of the simple country life with 
which Shakespeare was so familiar. His stepfather 
taught him his own trade of bricklaying, much to the 
boy's disgust, for he was eager to go on in school. This 
privilege came to him through the kindness of strangers, 
and, as one of his friends said later, he "barrelled up 
a great deal of knowledge." For a while he served as a 
soldier in the Netherlands. All this was before he was 
twenty, for at that age he had found his way to the thea- 
tre and was trying to act. As an actor, he was not a 
great success, but he soon showed that he could suc- 
ceed in that " retouching " of old plays which served 
young writers as a school for the drama. The next 
Every Man thing known of him is that in 1597, when he 
Himour. ^^^ twenty-four years of age, he wrote a play 
1B97. called Every Man in His Humour, which was. 

presented at the theatre with which Shakespeare was 



T597-1637] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS III 

connected. There is a tradition that Shakespeare was 

much interested in the young writer, that he persuaded 

the managers that 

the play would be 

a success, and that 

he himself took part 

in it. 

This maker of 
plays who had " bar- 
relled up a great 
deal of knowledge " 
was most profoundly 
interested in the clas- 
sic drama. The an- 
cient dramatists be- 
lieved that in every 
play three laws should 
be carefully observed. 
The first was that 
every part of a drama 
should help to develop 

one main story ; this was the unity of plot, and was 
obeyed by Shakespeare as well as Jonson. The The uni- 
second was that the time required by the inci- **®^- 
dents of a drama should never be longer than a single day ; 
this was the unity of time. The third was that the whole 
action should occur in one place ; this was the unity of 
place. In the romantic drama, like Shakespeare's plays, 
the characters develop, and the reader sees at gj^^j^^ 
the end of a play that they have been changed speareand 
by the experiences that they have met with. In °°^™" 
Jonson's plays, the characters have only one day's life, 
and they are the same at the end as at the beginning. 
Shakespeare's characters seem alive, and we discuss 




112 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1597-1637 

them, their deeds, and their motives, as if they were men 
and women of history. We may talk of Jonson's plots, 
but no one thinks of his characters as ever having lived. 
The law of unity of place prevented the writer from 
moving his scene easily and naturally as in real life, and 
this adds to their unrealness. Another respect in which 
the two writers were quite unlike was that Shakespeare 
seems to mingle with his characters and to syn)pathize 
with every one of them, no matter how unlike they are, 
while Jonson stands a little one side and manufactures 
them ; for instance, both wrote plays whose scenes were 
laid in Rome. Shakespeare shows us the thoughts and 
feelings of his Romans, but he is careless in regard to 
manners and customs ; Jonson is exceedingly accurate 
in all such details, but he forgets to put real people into 
his Roman dress. The result is that, while Shake- 
speare's Romans are men and women like ourselves, 
Jonson's are hardly more than lay figures. Shakespeare 
treats a Roman " like a vera brither ; " Jonson treats 
even his English characters as persons whose faults he 
is free to satirize as much as he chooses. In his first 
comedy he takes the ground that every one has some 
one special " humour," or whim, which is the governing 
power of his life. He names his characters according 
to this theory, and his Kno'well, Cash, Clement, Down- 
right, Wellbred, etc., recall the times of the morality 
plays. 

Why is it, then, that with this unrealness, this lack 
of human interest, such excellence should have been 
Jonson's found in the plays of Jonson } It is because he 
excellence, observed SO closely, because he was so learned 
and strong and manly, and especially because his fancy 
was so dainty and beautiful that no one could help being 
charmed by it He wrote a number of plays. Every 



i6io] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS II3 

one of them is worth reading; but really to enjoy Jon- 
son, one must read what he wrote when he forgot that 
the faults of his time ought to be reformed, that is, hia 
masques, which he composed to please the king ; foi 
somehow James discovered that this pedant could for- 
get his pedantry, that this wilful, satirical, overbear- 
ing, social, genial, warm-hearted author of rather chilly 
plays could write most exquisite masques. In jonson's 
masques Jonson saw no need of observing the masiiues. 
unities ; it was all in the land of fancy, and here his 
fancy had free rein. Of course he praised King 
James with the utmost servility ; but to give such 
praise in a masque to be acted before the king was not 
only good policy but it was a custom, and almost as much 
a literary fashion as writing sonnets or pastorals. In 
the masque most elaborate scenery was employed, and 
every device of light and dancing and music. Masque of 
In the Masque of Oberon, for instance, the sat- JgJ""- 
yrs "fell suddenly into an antick dance full I611. 
of gesture and swift motion." The crowing of the cock 
was heard, and, as the old stage directions say, " The 
whole palace opened, and the nation of Faies were dis- 
covered, some with instruments, some bearing lights, 
others singing," — and Jonson knew well how to write 
graceful song that was perfectly adapted to jhesad 
these fascinating scenes. He is rarely ten- Shepherd. 
der, but in his Sad Shepherd, an unfinished play, there 
are the exquisite lines : — 

Here she was wont to go, and here, and here ! 
Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow ; 
The world may find the spring by following her ; 
For other print her airy steps ne'er left : 
Her treading would not bend a blade of grass, 
Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk. 



114 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1606-1616 

Scattered through Jonson's plays are such beautiful 
bits of poetry as this ; and when we read them, we for- 
give him his Downright and Wellbred and his affection 
for the unities. 

65. The Tribe of Ben. Jonson became Poet Lau- 
reate, the first poet regularly appointed to hold that 
position ; but his courtly honors can hardly have given 
him as much real pleasure as the devotion of the younger 
literary men, the "Tribe of Ben," as they were called, 
who gathered around him with frank admiration and 
liking. 

The romantic plays that most resembled the drama 
of Shakespeare were written in partnership by two men, 
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Hardly 
Beaumont, anything is known of their lives except that 
john"^^^^ ' ^^^y were warm friends and kept bachelor's hall 
Fletcher, together. Beaumont was twenty and Fletcher 

1579-1625. ,, , ,, . 4.T,-i 

twenty-seven when their partnership began ; 
and it lasted for ten years, or until the death of Beau- 
mont, after which Fletcher continued alone. Working 
together was a common practice among the dramatists, 
and sometimes we can trace almost with certainty the 
lines of a play written by one man and those written by 
his fellow-worker ; but in the case of Beaumont and 
Fletcher, the closest study has resulted in little more 
than elaborate guesswork. These two come nearest to 
Shakespeare on his own lines, that is, they can read 
men well, and they can put their thoughts into beautiful 
verse ; but in the third point of Shakespeare's greatness 
they are lacking ; Shakespeare could sustain himself, 
Beaumont and Fletcher often fail. Their characters 
are not always what their natural traits and circum- 
stances should have made them. 

Beaumont died in 1616, the year of Shakespeare's 



1623-1642] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS nr 

death. Seven years later, thirty-six of Shakespeare's 
plays were collected and published in a book me First 
which is known as the First Folio. Ben Jonson roiio,i623. 
wrote the dedication, " To the memory of my beloved 
Master William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us." 
His poem is fairly flowing with love and appreciation 
and admiration for the man who would not observe the 
unities. It is full of such enthusiastic lines as — 

Soul of the age ! 
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage ! 

He was not of an age, but for all time. 

While I confess thy writings to be such 

As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much. 

Ben Jonson was not given to singing indiscriminate 
praises, and these words speak volumes for the sturdy 
friendship between the two men who differed so hon- 
estly about what pertained to their art. Stories were 
told many years afterwards of the " wit-combats " which 
had taken place between the two ; of Jonson's solid, 
learned arguments and Shakespeare's inventive, quick- 
witted retorts. It would be worth a whole library full 
of ordinary books to have a verbatim report of only one 
of those merry meetings. 

66. Closing of the theatres, 1642. Ben Jonson 
died in 1635, and only seven years later the drama 
came to an abrupt end by the breaking out of the Civil 
War and the passage of a law closing the theatres. 
Perhaps the coming of the end should not be called 
abrupt, for the glory of the Elizabethan drama Decadence 
had been gradually fading away. Looking back of the 
upon it from the vantage ground of nearly ""*' 
three centuries, it is easy to see that the beginning of 
the downfall was in the work of rugged, honest, obsti- 



Il6 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1642 

nate, and altogether delightful Ben Jon son ; for with 
him the drama first put an attempt to reform society 
before an attempt to picture society, an exaggeration of 
a single trait of a man before a delineation of the whole 
character of the man. Little by little the first inspira- 
tion vanished, and did not leave behind it the ability to 
distinguish good from evil. Beautiful lyrics and worth- 
less doggerel stood side by side. There was a demand 
for "something new." Plots were no longer probable 
or fascinatingly impossible, they were simply improb- 
able. Characters gradually ceased to be interesting. 
Worse than this, they were often unpleasant. The 
court of his Majesty James I. was not marked by an 
exquisite decorum in either speech or manner. Vul- 
garity and coarseness filtered down from the throne to 
the theatres ; it was time that they were closed. 

67. Increasing power of the Puritans. A second 
reason for the decadence of the drama is so intertwined 
with the first that they can hardly be separated, namely, 
the ever-increasing power of the Puritans. Even be- 
fore 161 1, their influence had become so strong that in 
numerous places besides Stratford it was forbidden to 
act plays. Many years earlier, even before Shakespeare 
first went to London, some of the Puritans wrote most 
earnestly against play-acting. One spoke of " Poets, 
Pipers, Plaiers, Jesters, and such-like caterpillars of a 
Commonwealth ; " but he had the grace to except some 
few plays which he thought of better character than the 
rest. One strong reason why the Puritans opposed 
plays at that time was because they were performed on 
Sundays as well as week-days, and people were inclined 
to obey the trumpet of the theatre rather than the bell 
of the church. Sunday acting was given up, and as the 
years passed, not only the Puritans, but those among 



1642-1660] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS I17 

their opponents who looked upon Hfe thoughtfully, be. 
gan to feel that the theatre, with the immorality and in- 
decency of many of the plays then in vogue, Theatrical 
was no place for them. It was abandoned to audiences, 
the thoughtless, to those who cared little for the char- 
acter of a play so long as it amused them, and to those 
who had no dislike for looseness of manners and laxness 
of principles. Such was the audience to whom play- 
wrights had begun to cater. In 1642 came war between 
the king and the people. In 1649 King Charles was be- 
headed, and until 1660 the Puritan party was in power. 

68. Literature of the conflict. Aside from the work 
of the dramatists, whose business it was to gratify the 
taste of their audiences, what kind of writing would 
naturally be produced in such a time of conflict, when 
so many were becoming more and more thoughtful of 
matters of religious living and when the line between 
the Puritans and the followers of the court was being 
drawn more closely every year ? We should look first 
for a meditative, critical spirit in literature ; then for 
earnestly religious writings, both prose and poetry, from 
both Puritan and Churchman ; and along with these a 
lighter, merrier strain from the courtier writers, not 
necessarily irreligious, but distinctly non-religious. 

69. John Donne, 1573-1631. This is precisely 
what came to pass ; but in this variety of literary pro- 
ductions there was hardly an author who was not influ- 
enced by the writings of a much admired preacher and 
poet named John Donne, the Dean of St. Paul's. His 
life covered the reign of James and two thirds of that of 
Ehzabeth, but just when his poems were written is not 
known. They are noted for two qualities. One of 
these was so purely his own that no one could imitate 
it, the power to illuminate his subject with a sudden and 



Ij3 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1573-1631 

flashing thought. That is why stray lines of Donne's 
Hnger in the memory, such as — 

I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, 
Who died before the god of love was born. 

Unfortunately, it was the second quality which was so 
generally imitated. This was, not the flashing out of a 
thought, but the wrapping it up and concealing it so 
that it requires a distinct intellectual effort to find out 
what is meant ; for instance, in the very poem just 
quoted are the lines : — 

But when an even flame two hearts did touch, 
His [Love's] office was indulgently to fit 
Actives to passives ; correspondency 
Only his subject was ; it cannot be 
Love, if I love who loves not me. 

Of course one finally reasons it out that Donne means 
to say love should inspire love, that " I love " and " I 
am loved" should "fit;" but by that time the reader 
is inclined to agree with honest Ben Jonson, who de- 
clared that Donne "for not being understood would per- 
ish," 

Sometimes, again, Donne conceals his thought in so 
complicated, far-fetched a simile that one has to stop 
and reason out its significance. He writes of two souls, 
his own and that of his beloved : — 

If they be two, they are two so 

As stiff twin compasses are two ; 
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show 

To move, but doth if th' other do. 

And though it in the centre sit, 
Yet when the other far dotli roam, 

It leans and hearkens after it. 

And grows erect as that comes home. 



i6o8-i66o] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 



19 



These " conceits," as they were called, greatly influ- 
enced the poets of the age. There were also two other 
influences, that of Ben Jonson for carefulness 

"Conceits." 
of form and expression, and that of Spenser, 

still remembered, for beauty and sweetness and richness 

of imagery ; but of these three influences, that of Donne 

was by far the strongest. 

70. John Milton, 1608-1674. Of the poets who 
wrote between 1625 and 1660, John Milton stands for 
the poetry of medita- 
tion. He was born in 
1608, the son of a 
wealthy Londoner. The 
father was anxious that 
his son should devote 
himself to literature ; 
and when he saw how 
perfectly the boy's 
wishes harmonized with 
his own, he left him ab- 
solutely free to follow 
his own will. Less free- 
dom in some respects 
might have been bet- 
ter ; for this boy of twelve with weak eyes and frequent 
headaches went to school daily, had also tutors at home, 
and made it his regular practice to study until midnight. 
He entered Cambridge at sixteen, not the ideal book- 
worm by any means, for he was so beautiful that he was 
nicknamed the " Lady of Christ's College." 

While Milton was still a student, he wrote his Hymn 
on the Morning of Christ's Nativity ,' 2^ most exquisite 
Christmas poem. The stanzas are perfect wherein his 
learning serves only for adornment and his mind is full 




JOHN MILTON 
1608-1674 



I20 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1629-1638 

of the thought of the Christ Child ; but some of those 
Hymn on toward the end of the poem, which are a Httle 
the Morning weighed down by his learning, have less charm. 
Nativity. This poem, one of Milton's earliest as it was, 
1629. j^g^g ^ kind of unearthly sweetness of melody 

and clearness of vision. It seems to have come from 
another world ; to have been written in a finer, rarer 
atmosphere. The feeling deepens on reading L Allegro, 
II Penseroso, the masque Comiis, and Lycidas, all com- 
posed within six years after Milton left the university 
and while he was devoting himself to music and study at 
his father's country home. He was only twenty-nine 
when the last of these poems was written. The first two, 
whose titles may be translated " The Cheerful Man " and 
"The Thoughtful Man," are descriptions, not of nature, 
but of the way nature affects the poet when he is in dif- 
ferent moods. It is interesting to compare Milton's work 
with that of earlier times. In V Allegro he writes : — 

Mountains on whose barren breast 
The labouring clouds do often rest: 
Meadows trim with daisies pied ; 
Shallow brooks and rivers wide : 
Towers and battlements it sees 
Bosomed high in tufted trees. 

Surrey loved nature, but this is the way he describes a 
similar scene : — 

The mountains high and how they stand ! 

The valleys and the great main land ! 

The trees, the herbs, the towers strong, 

The castles and the rivers long ! 

Poems Poetry made noble progress in the century 

written that lay between the two writers. 

iesTand L Allegro and II Penseroso reveal Milton 

1638. himself. L Allegro 's.^o.'^^ of jest and laughter 



1632-1639] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 121 

and dancing and mirth ; but Milton is not made mirthful, 
he is only an onlooker, he is never one of those who 

have — 

Come forth to play 
On a sunshine holyday. 

Shakespeare we admire and love ; Milton we admire. Of 
the other poems, Comus is a masque which was presented 
at Ludlow Castle. Lycidas is an elegy in memory of a 
college friend. It follows the pastoral fashion, and the 
best way to enjoy it is to read it over and over until the 
"flock" and "shepherd" and "swain" no longer seem 
artificial and annoying ; and then come appreciation and 
pleasure. Milton had ever the courage of his convic- 
tions. Even in Comus and Lycidas, a masque and an 
elegy, there are stern lines rebuking the evils of the 
times and the scandals of the church. It was easy to 
see on which side Milton would stand when the struggle 
broke out between the king and the Puritans. 

71. Milton as a pamphleteer. When it was plain that 
war must come, Milton was travelling on the Continent, 
honored and admired wherever he went by the men of 
greatest distinction. He had planned a much longer 
stay ; but " I thought it base to be travelling for amuse- 
ment abroad while my fellow-citizens were striking a 
blow for freedom," he said, and forthwith he set off for 
England. War had not yet broken out, but this earnest 
Puritan began to write pamphlets against the Church of 
England and against the king. In his pamphlets of 
controversy he seizes any weapon that comes to hand ; 
dignified rebuke, a whirlwind of denunciation, bitter 
sarcasm, or sheer insolence and railing, but never humor. 
In his prose he has small regard for form or even for 
the convenience of his readers ; in his Areopagitica, a 
plea for freedom of the press, his sentences are over* 



122 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1639-1651 

powering in their length ; three hundred words is by no 
means an unusual number : and yet, whether his sen- 
tences are long or short, simple or involved, there is 
seldom wanting that same magnificent flow of har- 
mony that is the glory of his poetry. Milton is always 
Milton. 

Among his pamphlets are some that he wrote on di- 
vorce. In the midst of the war, he, the stern Puritan, 
Milton's rnarried young Mary Powell, the daughter of 
marriage. ^^ ardent Royalist. After one gloomy month 
she returned to her own more cheerful home, and in the 
two years that passed before she would come back to 
him, he comforted himself by arguing in favor of divorce. 

Charles was executed in 1649, and when Cromwell 
became Lord Protector, Milton was made his Latin sec- 
retary. Milton seems cold and unapproachable, 
Latin but in One weighty act during the years of his 

secre ary. secretaryship he comes nearer to us than at 
any other time. The son of the dead King Charles was 
in France, and in his behalf a Latin pamphlet had been 
written by one of the most profound scholars of the time, 
upholding the course of Charles and declaring those who 
brought him to his death to be murderers. The Royal- 
ists were jubilant, for they thought no adequate reply 
could be given. The Puritans who knew John Milton 
best were confident, for they believed that he could con- 
fute the reasoning. It was a work requiring study and 
Defence oi research as well as skill in argument. Milton 
Peo^ie^"^* began, but very soon the question came to him, 
1651. whether to complete the paper or to save him- 

self from blindness, for he found that his sight was 
rapidly failing. He made his choice and wrote his De- 
fence of the English People. Three years later, sitting 
in total darkness, he wrote. — 



1637-1660] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS I23 

What supports me, dost thou ask? 
The conscience, Friend, t'have lost them overplied 
In liberty's defence, my noble task. 

72. Milton's sonnets. From 1637 to 1660 Milton 
wrote nothing but these stern, earnest pamphlets and 
a few sonnets, one in honor of Cromwell, and on the Late 
one, On the Late Massacre in Piedmont, that MassacreiH 

' Piedmont. 

sounds like the fiercest denunciations of a i655. 
Hebrew prophet. One sonnet is on his own blindness; 
and here every one must bow in reverence, for, shut 
up in hopeless darkness, he grieves only lest his " one 




PRINTING-OFFICE OF 1619 



talent " is lodged with him useless, and the last line 
fairly glows with a transfigured courage, — 

They also serve who only stand and wait. 
Milton had need of courage, for in 1660 the power of 



^24 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1593-1633 

the Puritans was gone. The country was tired of their 
„„. ^ strict laws, and Charles II, son of the be- 

Mllton ana 

thoResto- headed Charles, was brought back in triumph 

"^°°' to the throne of his fathers. Milton might 

well have been pardoned for feeling that his sacrifices 
were wasted. He was not without consolation, how- 
ever, for in his mind there was an ever brightening 
vision of a glorious work that he hoped to accomplish 
even in his darkness. 

73. The religious poets, Herbert, Crasha-w, Vaughan. 
Leaving for a while Milton, the poet of meditation, we 
return to the other writers of the time of contest be- 
tween the king's claim and the people's right ; first, to the 
religious authors, poets, and prose writers. The best 
known work of most of them was done between 1640 and 
1650, save for that of George Herbert, who died in 1633. 

74. George Herbert, 1593-1633. Herbert was born 
of a noble family, and was expected to do honor to it by 
entering court life. At first all things went smoothly. 
He had hardly taken his degree before honors were 
shown him which seemed the first steps to political ad- 
vancement. In a very short time, however, the friends 
died upon whom he had depended for influence with 
King James ; and he suddenly concluded to enter the 
church; His fashion of deciding momentous questions 
with a startling promptness he carried into other mat- 
ters ; for, three days after meeting the young woman 
who won his heart, their marriage took place. Again, 
when a more important position was offered him than 
the one which he held, he refused to accept it ; but 
having yielded to the archbishop's arguments, he ordered 
the proper canonical garments to be made ready on the 
following morning, put them on at once, and was inducted 
before night 



1633] 



PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 



125 



This man of rapid decisions had a sweet face and a 
gentle, courteous manner that won him friends wherever 
he went. He was the 
most modest of men, 
and in his last sickness 
he directed that his po- 
ems should be burned, 
unless the friend to 
whom he entrusted 
them thought they 
would be of advantage 
to "any poor, dejected 
soul." 

The writings were 
printed, and became 
very popular. The 
name of the volume 
was The Tcviple. It 
contained more than 
one hundred and fifty 
short religious poems. They have not the richness of 
the lyrics of the dramatists, they have not the TheTem- 
learning or the imagination of Milton; but p^^. 1633. 
they are so sincere, so earnest, and so practical that they 
were loved from the first. Herbert's is an every-day 
religion ; he is not afraid to speak of simple needs and 
simple duties. In his Elixir, which begins with the 
childlike petition, — 




GEORGE HERBERT 

1593-1633 



Teach me, my God and King, 
In all things Thee to see. 
And what I do in anything, 
To do it as for Thee, — 



he inserts the homely, helpful stanza, 



126 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1646 

A servant with this clause 
Makes drudgery divine : 
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws, 
Makes that and th' action fine. 

Herbert is full of conceits. After writing a beautiful 
little poem about the blessing of rest being withheld 
from man that for want of it he may be drawn to God, 
he named his poem The Pulley ! He wrote verses in 
the shape of an altar and in the shape of wings ; he 
wrote verses like these : ■— 

I bless Thee, Lord, because I GROW 
Among the trees, which in a ROW 
To Thee both fruit and order OW. 

But one willingly pardons such whims to the man who 
could write the christianized common sense of The 
Church Porch and the tender, sunlit verses of — 

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright. 

75. Richard Crashaw, 1615-1650. The names of 
two other religious poets of the time are familiar, Richard 
Crashaw and Henry Vaughan. Crashaw, as well as 
Herbert and Vaughan, was of the Church of England, 
but he afterwards became a Roman Catholic and spent 
ste s to the ^^^ ^^^^ years in Italy. In 1646 he published 
Altar. Steps to the Altar and also Delights of the 

^®*^' Muses; the first a book of religious verse, the 

second of secular. 

Crashaw is best remembered by a single line of reli- 
gious verse, the translation of his Latin line in reference 
to Christ's changing of water into wine, — 

The conscious water saw its Lord and blushed, — 
Vidit et erubuit nympha pudice Deum ; 
and also by his lightly written but half-earnest verses, 
Wishes to His {Sjipposed) Mistress: — 



i6so] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 127 

Whoe'er she be, 

That not impossible she, 

That shall command my heart and me. 

He goes on endowing her with every beauty and every 
virtue. Rewrites: — 

Her that dares be 

What these lines wish to see: 

I seek no further ; it is she. 

He ought to end here, but he continues for several 
stanzas more. He is somewhat like the writers of seven 
or eight centuries earlier in his way of beginning a poem 
and writing on and on without any very definite plan. 
If some kind critic had only looked over the shoulder of 
this man who was capable of composing such charming 
bits of verse, we might have had from him some rarely 
beautiful poems. 

76. Henry Vaughan, 1621-1695. Crashaw died in 
1650, the year in which Henry Vaughan, the 

c-1 -^ Air 1 u . J- C--7 o • .•/ SllexScln- 

bilurist, or vVelshman, wrote his Siiex Scintil- mians. 
lajis, or "sparks from the flintstone." He ex- ^^^^' 
plains the title in one of his poems : — 

Lord ! thou didst put a soul here. If I must 
Be broken again, for flints will give no fire 
Without a steel, O let thy power cleer 

The gift once more, and grind this flint to dust ! 

The allusion to his being "broken" is explained by 
the fact that a long illness had turned his mind upon 
heaven rather than upon earth. Eternity was his one 
thought. His poem, The World, begins superbly: — 

I saw eternity the other night. 
Like a great ring of pure and endless light 
All calm as it was bright. 

This is a conceit, to be sure, but it is a glorious one. 



128 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1650 

Vaughan loves nature, and his Bird is as tender as it 
is strong. One might fancy that it was Robert Burns 
himself who speaks : — 

Hither thou com'st. The busie wind all night 
Blew through thy lodging, where thy own warm wing 
Thy pillow was. Many a sullen storm, 
For which coarse man seems much the fitter born, 

Rain'd on thy bed 

And harmless head. 
And now, as fresh and cheerful as the light, 
Thy little heart in early hymns doth sing 
Unto that Providence whose unseen arm 
Curb'd them, and cloath'd thee well and warm. 

Vaughan sees what is beautiful in the world and loves 
it ; but all the while he looks fhrough it and beyond it. 
Herbert, whose life and poems were his model, wrote: — 

A man that looks on glass, 
On it may stay his eye ; 
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass, 
And then the heavens espy. 

So it is that Vaughan looks upon nature. Even in his 
lines to a little bird, he says that though the birds of 
light make a land glad, yet there are night birds with 
mournful note, and ends, — 

Brightness and mirth, and love and faith, all flye, 
Till the day-spring breaks forth again from on high. 

All that he writes comes from his own experience. 
There is not a hint of glancing at his audience ; every 
poem sounds as if it had been written for his own eyes 
and for those of no one else. There is somewhat of the 
charm of "Jerusalem the golden " in his — 

My soul, there is a countrie, 
Afar beyond the stars ; 



1640-1661] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 1 29 

but the poem which has been the most general favor- 
ite is : — 

They all are gone into the world of light, 

And I alone sit ling'ring here ! 
Their very memory is fair and bright, 

And my sad thoughts doth clear. 

77. Writers of religious prose. These three men, 
Herbert, Crashaw, and Vaughan, the Church of Eng- 
land clergyman, the Roman Catholic priest, and the 
Welsh physician, produced the best religious poetry of 
England during the Commonwealth and the troublous 
times preceding the same period. There were also 
three prominent writers of religious prose, Thomas Ful- 
ler, Jeremy Taylor, and Richard Baxter. 

78. Thomas Fuller, 1608-1661. Fuller was a clergy- 
man of the Church of England. He was so eloquent 
that his sermons were said to have been preached to 
two audiences, those within the room and those who filled 
the windows and the doors. " Not only full but Fuller," 
the jesters used to say. Fuller published in TheHoiy 
1640 his Holy and Profane State, which was JJ^tf'^' 
sparkling with bits of wisdom. "She com- i640. 
mandeth her husband by constantly obeying him," is 
one of his epigrams. His sermons were always inter- 
esting, for he was not only earnest and able, but he was 
quaintness itself. His subjects are a study. One series 
of sermons was on "Joseph's Party-colored Coat." One 
was on "An ill match wel broken off;" and had for 
its text, " Love not the world." 

Fuller's best known book is not religious but his- 
torical, and i?i the outgrowth of his experience as an 
army chaplain ; for while he was with the king's soldiers, 
he spent his spare time collecting bits of local informa- 
tion about prominent persons. He wandered about 



I30 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1650-1662 

among the people, listening for hours at a time to the 
garrulous village gossips for the sake of obtaining some 
one good story, some bit of reminiscence, or an ancient 
doggerel rhyme, as the case might be ; and he put them 
The all into his book, The Worthies of England, or 

Worthies oi p^n^y' s J F<?r///zVj, as it is commonly called. He 
1662. describes one man as a " facetious dissenting 

divine," another as a "pious divine;" of another he 
says, "He did first creep, then run, then fly into prefer- 
ment ; or rather preferment did fly upon him without 
his expectation." He says of another man, "He was 
a partial writer," but adds consolingly that he is "buried 
near a good and true historian." He is full of quaint 
antitheses and conceits; for example, he says that gar- 
dening is "a tapestry in earth," and that tapestry is a 
"gardening in cloth." Of the sister of Lady Jane Grey 
he writes that she wept so much that "though the roses 
in her cheeks looked very wan and pale, it was not for 
want of watering." 

79. Jeremy Taylor, 1613-1667. The second of the 
religious writers, Jeremy Taylor, was the author of Holy 
HoiyLiv- Living and Holy Dying. He was one of the 
H^i'^D^?' chaplains of King Charles, though there was 
1651. some hesitation about appointing him because 

of his youth. The young man was equal to the occa- 
sion, however, for he begged the archbishop to pardon 
that fault and promised to mend it if he lived. He 
certainly deserved anything that England could offer 
if the account of his early sermons is at all accurate, 
which says his audience was forced to take him for 
"some young angel, newly descended from the visions 
of glory." 

Jeremy Taylor is always fresh and bright and inter- 
esting. In whatever he says, there is some turn of 



i6so] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 13I 

thought, some bit of sweetness or gentleness that is un- 
like the work of others. His similes especially are so 
simple and natural that once heard, they cannot be for- 
gotten. He says : — 

I have seert young and unskilful persons sitting in a little boat, 
when every little wave sporting about the sides of the vessel, and 
every motion and dancing of the barge seemed a danger, and made 
them cling fast upon their fellows : and yet all the while they were 
as safe as if they sat under a tree, while a gentle wind shaked the 
leaves into a refreshing and cooling shade. And the unskilful, in- 
experienced Christian shrieks out whenever his vessel shakes . . . 
and yet, all his danger is in himself, none at all from without. 

He loves nature, and he notices all the little things as 
well as the great. In likening the comforting words of 
a true friend to the coming of spring, he says : — 

But so have I seen the sun kiss the frozen earth, which was 
bound up with the images of death and the colder breath of the 
north ; and then the waters break from their enclosures, and melt 
with joy and run in useful channels ; and the flies do rise again 
from their little graves in walls, and dance awhile in the air to tell 
that there is joy within. 

80. Richard Baxter, 1615-1691. The third of these 
writers of religious prose was Richard Baxter. In his 
youth he spent one month at court, but found a cour- 
tier's life unendurable. He became a clergyman of the 
Church of England and finally a thoroughgoing ^^^ 
Puritan. He wrote T/ie Sainfs Everlasting Everlasting 
Rest; and he might well turn his mind toward ^*^^- "^°- 
rest, for he lived in the midst of danger and perse- 
cution. "Methinks," he wrote, "among my books I 
could employ myself in sweet content, and bid the 
world farewell, and pity the rich and great that know 
not this happiness ; what then will my happiness in 
heaven be, where my knowledge will be perfect?" 



132 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1589-1639 

Aside from Baxter's earnestness, his great charm lies in 
his simplicity and directness. Whoever reads the book 
feels as if the author were talking rather than writing, 
and talking directly to him and to no one else. He is 
sincere and powerful, but entirely without embellish- 
ments. He said he never had "leisure for polishing or 
exactness or any ornament." He thought of nothing 
but the good that he might do. When some one praised 
his books, he replied, " I was but a pen, and what praise 
is due to a pen ? " 

81. The " Cavalier Poets." Entirely different from 
these earnest, serious preachers was a merry little 
group of "Cavalier Poets," as they have been called, all, 
save one, closely connected with the court of Charles I. 
In this group were four who were superior to the others 
of their class. They were Thomas Carew, Sir John Suck- 
ling, Richard Lovelace, and Robert Herrick. 

82. Thomas Carew, 1589-1639. Carew was sewer, 
or cup-bearer to King Charles, and was a favorite at 
the court. He would probably have won just as much 
praise from the gay company around him if he had 
written as carelessly as some of them, but that was not 
Carew's way. His poems are not deep and powerful, 
but they are never careless. He begins with a thought, 
perhaps a very simple one, but he is as careful to express 
it smoothly and gracefully as if it were a whole epic. His 
Ask Me lyrics are his best known work, especially the 
no More. song, Ask Me 110 More. Quite different are 
they in tone from those of the "complaining" lovers of 
Tottels Miscellany. Carew ventures to write The Lady 
to Her Inconstant Servant ; but in Surrey's poems the 
" servant " never dreamed of being inconstant. Carew 
knows how to appreciate beauty, but again and again 
he turns from a pretty face to the qualities of heart and 



.608-1642] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 133 

mind. Perhaps as well known as Ask Me no More are 
the first two stanzas of Disdain Returned: — 

He that loves a rosy cheek, 

Or a coral lip admires, 
Or from star-like eyes doth seek 

Fuel to maintain his fires, 
As old Time makes these decay. 
So his flames must waste away. 

But a smooth and steadfast mind, 

Gentle thoughts and calm desires, 

Hearts, with equal love combined, 
Kindle never-dying fires ; 

Where these are not, I despise 

Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes. 

83. Sir John Suckling, 1608-1642. Sir John Suck- 
ling used to laugh at Carew for being so careful to make 
his poems smooth and finished ; for he himself tossed off 
a rhyme as lightly as one blows away a bit of thistle- 
down. Somehow in reading the best of Suckling's 
poems, we can never get away from the feeling that Sir 
John himself is reciting them to us, and we fancy the 
mischievous sparkle of his eyes as he queries, — 

Why so pale and wan, fond lover ? 

Prithee, why so pale ? 
Will, when looking well can't move her, 

Looking ill prevail ? 

Prithee, why so pale ? 

Suckling wrote a gay little letter in rhyme to " Dick," 
who may have been Richard Lovelace, telling him about 
a wedding that he had attended. It is all merry and 
bright, but when he comes to talk about the bride, he 
is fairly bubbling over with fun. 

Her feet beneath her petticoat, 
Like little mice stole in and out, 
As if they fear'd the light : 



134 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1618-1674 

But O she dances such a way ! 
No sun upon an Easter-day 
Is half so fine a sight. 

This gay young courtier, rich, handsome, and talented, 
met with a sad fate. He spent four years wandering 
over the Continent, fought for the king of Sweden, re- 
turned to London, left the court for a time, but hastened 
back to aid the Royalist party. After the final victory 
of the Puritans, he fled from England. In Spain he en- 
dured the most fearful tortures of the Inquisition, but 
finally escaped. All this was before he was thirty-four, 
for in that year of his age he died. 

84. Richard Lovelace, 1618-1658. Richard Love- 
lace had a life equally full of changes. He, like Suck- 
ling, was a court favorite. He too was rich, handsome, 
and talented ; and he too stood firmly by the man 
whom he believed to be his rightful sovereign. For the 

king's sake he bore imprisonment, and it 
was in prison that he wrote To Althea, with 
its famous lines, — 

Stone walls do not a prison make, 
Nor iron bars a cage. 

There are two more lines of Lovelace's that are as 
familiar as any proverb, — 

I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
Loved I not honour more. 

The woman whom he loved believed him to be dead, 
and married another man. He was in despair, and he 
cared little what became of him. He threw away his 
fortune, and finally died in the depths of poverty. 

85. Robert Herrick, 1594-1674. The fourth of 
these Cavalier poets, and by far the greatest, was Robert 
Herrick. His life was quite different from that of the 



1648] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 135 

Others in that he knew nothing of days at court. He 
had some fourteen years of quiet at Cambridge, and 
then twenty years of greater quiet as minister of a little 
country parish. He wrote more lyrics than any of his 
fellow poets, and a large number of them have that un- 
explainable quality which makes us say, "That is just 
the thought for the place." 

" Robin " was one of the few men who are every inch 
alive. He loved the old Greek dances, but he could 
find amusement in watching his parishioners circle 
around an English Maypole. He wrote a Thanksgiving 
for his little house, his watercress, his fire, his bread, and 
his " beloved beet " as simply and as sincerely as a child. 
Herrick enjoyed everything. 

Where care 
None is, slight things do lightly please, 

he says gayly. He calls upon music, — 

Fall on me like a silent dew, 

Or like those maiden showers, 
Which, by the peep of day, do strew 

A baptism o'er the flowers ; 

but he is equally ready to chat in rhyme about his maid 
" Prewdence," his hen, his cat, his goose, or his dog 
Tracy. 

Herrick wrote two collections of poems. The Hes- 
ferides and Noble Numbers. The Hesperides is all aglow 
with sunshine ; it is full of "brooks, of bios- TheHes- 
soms, birds, and bowers," as he says in his ar- perides. 

1648. 

gument. Chaucer writes of the springtime 
and of the longing that it gives folk to go on pilgrimage, 
but there is even more of the springtime eagerness to 
go somewhere under the open sky in Herrick's Corinna 'i 
Going a-Maying. 



136 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1648 

Get up, get up for shame ! the blooming morn 
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn. 
See how Aurora throws her fair 
Fresh-quilted colours through the air: 
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see 
The dew bespangling herb and tree. 

To " Julia" he writes a crisp little Night Piece, — 

Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, 
The shooting stars attend thee ; 

And the elves also, 

Whose little eyes glow 
Like the sparks oif fire, befriend thee. 

He writes to "Corinna" or " Perilla " or "Anthea," 
but not with the agonies of Elizabethan lovers ; for he 
seems to have no more choice among them than that one 
name will suit his line and another will not. 

His religious poems, Noble Niivibers, are somewhat 
different from those of the other writers of religious 
Noble verse. He is no hermit, no recluse. " God is 

Numbers, over the world, then let us enjoy it," is the 
spirit of his verse. He does not long for the 
mystic joys of martyrdom ; he does not often beg for 
more blessings either spiritual or temporal ; but he is 
grateful for what he has, and does not doubt that good- 
ness and mercy will follow him all the days of his life. 
Even in his Litany there are no agonies of doubt and 
uncertainty. He prays for comfort, and he expects tc 

receive it. 

In the hour of my distress. 
When temptations me oppress. 
And when I my sins confess, 
Sweet Spirit, comfort me. 



When the Judgment is reveal'd. 
And that open'd which was seal'd 
When to Thee I have appeal'd, 
Sweet Spirit, comfort me. 



16511 PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 137 

There is an unmistakable tone of sincerity in the follow- 
ing lines, one of the first poems in Noble Numbers : — 

Forgive me, God, and blot each line 
Out of my book that is not Thine. 
But if, 'mongst all, thou find'st here one 
Worthy thy benediction ; 
That one of all the rest shall be 
The glory of my work and me. 

One little corner of his writings is so unlike the rest 
of his poems that it might pass for the work of another 
author ; but, save for that, Herrick is the most delight- 
ful, frank, refreshing man that one can imagine, fairly 
running over with the joy of living and with the cheer- 
fulness that comes from finding great pleasure in small 
pleasures. 

86. Izaak Walton, 1593-1683. One author who will 
not fall into line with the others of his day is Izaak 
Walton. The confusion and troubles of the Civil War 
did not suit him, and he slipped away to the country to 
find peace and quiet. He lived to be ninety years old, 
but not in loneliness, for his friends were always ready 
to go to see this man with his brightness, intelligence, 
and gentle, whimsical humor. He was not without oc- 
cupation in his country home, for there he wrote the 
lives of several famous men of his time, Donne and Her- 
bert among them. These Lives are so tender and sin- 
cere that they seem to be simple talks about friends who 
were dear to him, an ideal mode of writing biographies.' 
Best of his works, however, is The Compleat Thecom- 
Ansrler. In one way it is a wise little treatise pleat ^n- 

fflfir 1663 

on the different kinds of fish and the best 
modes of catching them ; but its charm lies not in infor- 
mation about hooks and bait but in Walton's genuine 
love of the country and in the quaintness of his thoughts 



138 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1660 

He treats fishing with gravity, whether mock or real it 
is sometimes hard to tell. " Angling is somewhat like 
poetry," he declares learnedly, " men are to be born so ; " 
and he gives as the epitaph of a friend, "An excellent 
angler, and now with God." "Look about you," he 
says, " and see how pleasantly that meadow looks ; nay, 
and the earth smells so sweetly too : Come let me tell 
you what holy Mr. Herbert says of such days and flow- 
ers as these, and then we will thank God that we enjoy 
them," — and he recites, — 

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright. 

It is no marvel that his old friends never forsook the man 
who could chat so simply and delightfully. He is espe- 
cially charming when he talks of music, whether it ba 
the " smooth song which was made by Kit Marlow " or 
the inimitable melody of the nightingale. Of the latter 
he writes : — 

But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such 
sweet loud music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might 
make mankind to think miracles were not ceased. He that at mid- 
night, when the very labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have 
very often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and 
falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be 
lifted above earth, and say, " Lord, what musick hast thou provided 
for the Saints in Heaven, when thou affordest bad men such mu- 
sick on Earth ! " 

87. The Restoration, 1660. The year 1660 found Eng- 
land tired of Puritan control. Across the Channel was the 
son of Charles I., and he was invited to return and rule 
the land, as has been said. Unfortunately, he could not 
even rule himself, and his idea of being king was simply 
to have plenty of money and amusement. At first the 
nation could hardly help sympathizing with him and his 
merry Cavalier friends ; for the last years had been dull 



(662] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 139 

and gloomy. After the supreme power fell into the 
hands of the Puritans, they suppressed as far as possible 
all public amusements, and they made no distinction be- 
tween the brutalities of bull-baiting and the simple dan- 
cing around a Maypole which had so entertained Herrick. 
Much of this unreasonable strictness was due to men who 
were not really Puritans at heart, but who had joined the 
ruling party for the sake of power ; and these men went 
beyond the others in severity in order to make themselves 
appear zealous converts, 

88. Samuel Butler, 1612-1680. It is possible that 
some of these turncoats had a sly relish of a book which 
came out in 1662 and which threw the merry monarch 
and his court into gales of laughter. Its name Hudibras. 
was Hudibras, and it was written by one Sam- ■^®®^- 
uel Butler. Among the few facts known of his life is 
that he was for some time a member of the household of 
a Puritan colonel. The gentleman never guessed that a 
caricature of himself was to be the laughing-stock of the 
son of the king whom his party had beheaded. This Puri- 
tan becomes in Butler's hands a knight who sets out with 
his squire, quite in the mediaeval fashion, to range the 
country through and correct abuses. Thus is Sir Hudi- 
bras described : — 

For he was of that stubborn crew 

Of errant saints, whom all men grant 

To be the true Church Militant: 

Such as do build their faith upon 

The holy text of pike and gun ; 

Decide all controversies by 

Infallible artillery, 

And prove their doctrine orthodox, 

By Apostolic blows and knocks. 

There was much comfort in this satire for the men who 
had been beaten by the " infallible artillery." 



140 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1660-1667 

Nobody cares much to-day which side Butler made 
fun of. We value Hiidibras for its amusing similes, its 
real wisdom, and its witty couplets, such as : — 

The sun had long since in the lap 
Of Thetis taken out his nap, 
And, like a lobster boiled, the morn 
From black to red began to turn. 

Great conquerors greater glory gain 
By foes in triumph led than slain. 

He that complies against his will 
Is of his own opinion still. 

Butler is said to have expected a reward from the king 
and to have been disappointed. This was quite in the 
style of Charles II, whose gratitude was reserved for 
the favors which he hoped to receive. 

89. Milton's later years. The only gratitude that 
can be felt toward Charles himself is for his negative 
goodness in not persecuting to the death John Milton, 
a man who had been so prominent during the Common- 
wealth and who had written the Defence of the English 
People. The poet was left to spend his later years in 
peace ; and then it was that his mind turned toward a 
plan of his youth that had long been laid aside for the 
time of quiet that he hoped would come. He wished to 
write some long poem on a subject that was worthy of 
his ability. Just what that subject should be was not 
easy to decide. He thought of taking King Arthur for 
a hero and writing a British epic ; but his plan broadened 
until he determined to write — 

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat. 



'667] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 14I 

These are the first lines of Paradise Lost. The poem 
is based upon Rev. xii. 7-9, the third chapter of Genesis, 
and other passages in the Bible. Satan rebels paradise 
against God and with his angels is cast out of i-ost. I667. 
heaven into the flames of hell. While they lie in chains, 
the world is created, and man is given the Garden of 
Eden for his home. Satan rouses his angels to revenge 
themselves by tempting man. He himself makes his 
way to Eden and persuades Eve to disobey the command 
of God. Adam joins her in the sin, and both are driven 
from Eden ; but a vision is granted to show that man 
shall one day find redemption. 

To treat so lofty a theme in such manner that the 
treatment shall not by contrast appear trivial and un- 
worthy is a rare triumph. Milton has succeeded so far 
as success is possible. His imagination does not fail ; 
hi3 poetic expression is ever suited to his thought ; the 
mere sound of his phrases is a wonderful organ music, 
for Milton is master of all the beauties and intricacies 
of poetic harmony. Short extracts give no idea of the 
majesty of the poem, though there are scores of lines 
that have become familiar in every-day speech. 

The mind is its own place, and in itself 
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 

Not to know me argues yourselves unknown. 

The world was all before them, where to choose. 

Milton ever suits the word to the thought. To express 
harshness of sound he says : — 

On a sudden open fly, 
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, 
Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate 
Harsh thunder. 



142 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1671 

There is the very hush of evening in the lines, — 

Then silent night 
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon. 

Here is gliding smoothness : — 

Liquid lapse of murmuring streams. 
Milton had thought that the vision shown to Adam 
of the final redemption of man was all-sufficient ; but a 
Quaker friend who had read the manuscript said to him, 
"Thou hast said much of Paradise lost, but what hast 
Paradise ^^°^ ^° ^^^ ^° Paradise found ? " This simple 
Regained, question inspired Milton's second long poem. 

Paradise Regained, which he — and he only — 
preferred to the first. After this he wrote Samson 
Samson Agonistes, a tragedy which conforms in every 
Agonistes. way to the rules of the Greek drama. These 

poems were dictated in his blindness. One 
sonnet, written during those years of darkness, explains 
the power by which he endured so crushing a misfor= 
tune : — 

When I consider how my light is spent 

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, 
And that one talent which is death to hide, 
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent 

To serve therewith my Maker, and present 
My true account, lest he returning chide ; 
" Doth God exact day-labour, light denied 1 " 
I fondly ask : but Patience, to prevent 

That murmur, soon replies, " God doth not need 
Either man's work, or his own gifts ; who best 
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best : his state 

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed. 

And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; 
They also serve who only stand and wait." 

A child may find pleasure in the musical sound of Para- 
dise Lost, but the fullest enjoyment and appreciation of 



1628-1688] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 



143 



the poem require familiarity not only with the Bible, but 
with classical literature. Four years after Milton's death 
a book came out which to children is a fascinating story 
and to the learned a marvellously perfect allegory, while 
to thousands of humble seekers after the way in which 
they should walk it has been a guide and an inspiration. 
This book is The Pilgrim s Progress. 

90. John Bunyan, 1628-1688. It was written by 
John Bunyan, a man whose life was in many ways the 
opposite of Milton's, for 
he was poor and almost 
without even the simplest 
beginnings of education. 
There is small reason for 
thinking that Milton ever 
looked upon himself as in 
any respect a wrongdoer; 
but the rude village lad ' 
suffered for two years ago- 
nies of remorse for what he 
feared was the unpardona- 
ble wickedness of his boy- 
hood. At last the light 
burst upon him. He believed that the sins of his youth 
had found forgiveness, and he had but one desire, to 
preach forgiveness to every one whom he could reach. 
His trade was that of a tinker, and as he went from 
place to place, he preached wherever any one would 
listen. There was little trouble in gathering audiences 
together ; for the untaught villager began to show a 
vividness of speech, a rude eloquence, which held his 
hearers as if they were spellbound. 

Those were not days when a man might preach what 
he would. Charles H looked upon all dissenters as 




JOHN bUNY; 
1628-1688 



144 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1678 

opposed to him, Bunyan had become a dissenter, and 
Perse- it did not occur to him to conceal his faith or 

cution. even to preach with less boldness. He was 
promptly arrested and thrown into jail. " Will you pro- 
mise to do no more preaching if you are set free } " the 
king's officers asked. Outside the jail were his wife and 
two little daughters, one of them especially dear to him 
because of her blindness ; but Bunyan refused to make 
the promise. For twelve years he was a prisoner in 
Bedford Jail, doing whatever work he could get to sup- 
port his family. At the end of that time he was free 
for a while, then came a second imprisonment. It was 
ThePii- wkhin the walls of the jail that he wrote T/ie 
erim's Pilgrim s Progress, the most perfect allegory 

1678. ever produced. In this story, or " dream," 

Christian — no glittering knight, but a plain, every-day 
citizen — flees from the City of Destruction in quest 
of the Celestial City. He has many troubles ; he falls 
into the Slough of Despond ; he has to go by roaring 
lions ; he encounters Apollyon ; he passes through 
the Valley of Humiliation ; he is beaten and perse- 
cuted at Vanity Fair ; he wanders out of the way and 
falls into the hands of Giant Despair of Doubting Cas- 
tle ; and he goes tremblingly through the Valley of 
the Shadow of Death. But his way is not all gloom. 
He finds friendly entertainment and counsel at the 
House of the Interpreter ; at the house built by the 
Lord of the Hill he rests " in a large upper chamber, 
whose window opened toward the sunrising, the name 
of the chamber was Peace ; " he is shown far away the 
beauties of the Delectable Mountains, which are in 
Emmanuel's Land ; the key of promise opens the way 
out of Doubting Castle. At last he and his friends 
stand beside the River of Death, which alone lies be 



1678] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 145 

tween them and the Celestial City ; and when they have 
passed through the flood, behold two Shining Ones are 
beside them to help them up the hill to the City whose 
foundation is higher than the clouds. A heavenly host 
comes out to meet them and gives them ten thousand 
welcomes. " Call at the gate," bid the Shining Ones, 
and the King commands that it shall be opened unto 
them. They go in, and all the bells of the City ring for 
joy. The dreamer looked in after them and he says, "The 
City shone like the sun ; the streets also were paved 
with gold, and in them walked many men with crowns 
on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps 
to sing praises withal. . . . And after that they shut up 
the gates ; which, when I had seen, I wished myself 
among them." 

The Pilgrivis Progress is a wonderful book. It is 
the result of a thorough knowledge of the Bible, sincere 
religious feeling, and a glowing imagination that made 
real and tangible whatever thought it touched. No 
other writer could safely venture to name his characters 
Faithful or Pliable or Ignorance ; but Bunyan makes 
these abstractions real. Faithful has other qualities 
than faithfulness, and he talks with Christian not like a 
shadow, but like a real human being. When Christian 
fights with Apollyon, there is no strife of phantoms, but 
a veritable contest, wherein Apollyon gave him a fall 
and would have pressed him to death had not Christian 
by good fortune succeeded in catching his sword and 
giving him a deadly thrust. The English of the book 
is pure and strong ; but its great power lies neither in 
its English nor in the perfection of the allegory, but in 
the fact that in picturing his own religious struggles, 
Bunyan pictured those of many another man. " Look 
\n thy heart and write," said Philip Sidney. One hun- 



146 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1660 

dred years later, the unlettered tinker in Bedford Jail 
obeyed unconsciously the behest of the heir of the rich- 
est culture that England could give, and sent forth a 
masterpiece. Bunyan wrote several other books, all of 
value, but none equal to The Pilgrim s Progress. After 
his release from prison and to the end of his life he 
devoted himself to the preaching that he loved. 

91. John Dryden, 1631-1700. Neither Bunyan nor 
Milton wrote with any thought of pleasing the age in 
which he lived. Bunyan says explicitly, — 

Nor did I undertake 
Thereby to please my neighbor; no, not L 
I did it mine own self to gratify. 

Milton surely had no preference of his own age in mind 
when he spent his last years on a work which he had 
little reason to think would find many readers among 
his contemporaries. The most important writer of the 
closing years of the century was their opposite in this 
respect. His name was John Dryden. He was born 
in 1 63 1, of a Puritan family. Up to 1660, he wrote 
nothing that attracted any attention except a eulogy of 
Cromwell, but in that year he produced a glowing wel- 
come to Charles H, wherein he declared that — 

For his long absence Church and State did groan. 

We owe much to Dryden, but his name would be even 
greater if he had not deliberately made up his mind to 
please the age in which he lived, and which, unfortunately, 
was an age of neither good morals nor good manners. 
The theatres, closed in 1642, were now flung open, and 
The drama there was a call for plays. Many were written, 
of the but they were of quite different character from 

the plays of the sixteenth century. The Shake- 
spearian inspiration had vanished, and the French' de 



1667] 



PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 



14; 



sire for polish and carefulness of form now held sway. 
If the hero of a play was in circumstances that would 
naturally arouse deep feeling, the writer was expected 
to polish every phrase, 
but whether the speech 
sounded sincere was a 
matter of small moment. 
Indeed, it was regarded as 
in much better taste to re- 
press all genuine emotion. 
This was enough to make 
a play cold and unreal ; but 
another popular demand 
was still more destructive 
of a really great dramatic 
period, namely, that the 
plays should imitate the 
indecent manners of the 
court. A successful play, 
then, was required to be 
polished in form, gay and 
witty, but cold, and often vulgar and profane. Dryden 
yielded to this demand, especially in his comedies, but 
he was otherwise honest in his work, for he wrote care- 
fully and thoughtfully. No other dramatic poet of the 
age was his equal ; and, indeed, about whatever he wrote 
there was a certain strength and power that won atten- 
tion and respect. 

Dryden was careful to choose popular themes. He 
wrote a poem on the events of the year 1667, namely, 

the Great Fire of London, the Plague, and the 

° Dryden's 

War with the Dutch ; not poetical subjects by choice oi 

any means, but subjects in which every one was '**1"°**" 

interested and which afforded good opportunity for lines 




JOHN DRYDEN 
1631-1700 



148 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1681-1682 

that would win applause, such as the following, which 
says that the English seaman — 

Adds his heart to every gun he fires. 

Life began to move easily and pleasantly with Dry- 
den. He was favored by the king ; his company was 
scnight by men of rank, he was comfortable financially. 
His next step was to write satire. The country was 
full of plot and intrigue. Whoever wished to stand well 
with the king and his party must do his best to support 
them. Then it was that Dryden wrote his most famous 
Absalom satire, Absalom and Achitophel. In this there 
tSifi?^^" ^^ ^ ^^"^ o^ character-reading that is quite dif- 

1681. ferent from Shakespeare's. Shakespeare was 
interested in all kinds of people and understood them 
because he sympathized with them. Dryden's aim in 
his satire was not to understand and sympathize, but to 
pick out the weakest points of his victims, to sting and 
to hurt. One man he described as — 

Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, 
Was everything by starts and nothing long, 
But in the course of one revolving moon 
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon. 

Dryden was ready to undertake any kind of literary 
work that was demanded by the times, and in the midst 
Laicf °^ ^^^ satires he wrote the Religio Laid, or 

1682. " religion of a layman," and here he deserves 
honest praise. This poem is an argument in favor 
of the Church of England. To express difficult argu- 
ments in verse is not easy, but Dryden has suc- 
ceeded. His poem is clear and natural in its wording, 
smooth, dignified, and easy to read. 

Shall I speak plain, and in a nation free 
Assume an honest layman's liberty ? 



1667-1697] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 149 

I think, according to my little skill, 
To my own mother Church submitting still, 
That many have been saved, and many may, 
Who never heard this question brought in play. 
The unlettered Christian, who believes in gross. 
Plods on to Heaven and ne'er is at a loss; 
For the strait gate would be made straiter yet. 
Were none admitted there but men of wit. 

Only a few years later Dryden became a member 
of the Roman Catholic Church and wrote The Hind 
and the Panther, wherein the milk-white hind The Hind 
represents the Church of Rome ; the panther, lather, 
beautiful but spotted, the church he had aban- 1687. 
doned. Dryden could write witty lines, but his sense 
of humor was not strong enough to save him from the 
absurdity of setting two of the beasts of the field into 
theological argument. Still, here were the same excel- 
lencies as in the Religio Laid, the same grace and 
vigor. The poem deserved applause and won it. 

Dryden translated the ^neid and other Translation 
works. He wrote two beautiful odes for St. Aeneid, 
Cecilia's Day. In the second, known as Alex- ^JgYaiider's 
anders Feast, are many lines of the sort that Feast, 1697. 
stay in the memory, such as : — 

None but the brave deserves the fair. 

Sweet is pleasure after pain, St^CeolUa's 

War, he sung, is toil and trouble ; Day- 1687. 

Honour but an empty bubble. 

Dryden's prose is of great value because of its clear, 
bracing style and general excellence. He Essay of 
wrote much criticism, not only in his Essay po^^^° 
of Dramatic Poesy, but in the prefaces to his i667. 
various plays ; and criticism, aside from stray paragraphs, 
was something new in English literature. His sen- 



ISO ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1700 

tences have not the majestic sonorousness of Milton's, 
but every phrase has its work to do and is placed where 
it can do that work best. In the hands of Dryden prose 
became a keen-edged instrument. 

The year 1700 is marked by the death of this poet, 
critic, dramatist, and satirist. The seventeenth century 
had seen the noblest imaginative work of Shakespeare ; 
the thoughtfulness for form of Ben Jonson ; the accu- 
rate reasoning of Bacon ; the gay trivialities, sometimes 
touched with seriousness, of the Cavalier poets ; the 
tender grace of Walton ; the earnestness, aspiration, and 
devotion of the writers of religious prose and poetry ; 
the majesty oi Paradise Lost; the spiritual symbolism 
of The Pilgrini s Progress ; and now, last of all, had come 
John Dryden, who stood in the story of the century for 
the development of critical judgment. The glow of the 
Elizabethan inspiration had long since passed away. 
Looking forward to the eighteenth century, one could 
not hope to find a great imaginative poetry or a 
marked originality, but one could justly expect an unus- 
ual development of literary moderation and correctness. 

Century XVII 

PURITANS AND ROYALISTS 

First Quarter of the Century. 

Francis Bacon. Beaumont and Fletcher. 

Shakespeare's later work. John Donne. 

Ben Jonson. 

Literature of the Conflict and the Commonwealth, 

John Milton, earlier poems and pamphlets. 
Izaak Walton. 
Religious poets : 

George Herbert. Henry Vaughan. 

Richard Crashaw, 



I7th Cent.] PURITANS AND ROYALISTS IJI 

Religious prose writers : 

Thomas Fuller. Richard Baxter. 

Jeremy Taylor. 
Cavalier poets : 

Thopias Carew. Richard Lovelace. 

Sir John Suckhng. Robert Herrick. 

Literature of the Restoration. 

Samuel Butler. John Bunyan. 

Milton, later poems. John Dryden. 



SUMMARY 

In the early years of the seventeenth century Shakespeare 
produced his finest plays, the deeper comedies and the trage- 
dies. His sonnets were published. Raleigh typifies the Eliza- 
bethan of universal ability. Bacon wrote his Listauratio 
Magna. In 1611, the " King James version " of the Bible was 
produced. 

Next to Shakespeare in greatness, but strongly contrasted 
with him in method of work and cast of mind, was Ben Jon- 
son. His most interesting work is his masques. The 10- 
mantic plays most like Shakespeare's were those of Beaumont 
and Fletcher. In 1623, thirty-six of Shakespeare's plays 
were collected and printed. 

The drama gradually became less excellent ; partly be- 
cause it ceased to reflect life, partly because Puritan influence 
resulted in abandoning the theatre to the careless and im- 
moral. In 1642 the theatres were closed. 

The writers of the Commonwealth were all influenced to 
some extent by the " conceits " of Donne. Their writings 
were, first, meditative and critical, represented by the earlier 
work of Milton, many of his shorter poems and his pamphlets ; 
second, earnestly religious, represented by the work of Her- 
bert, Crashaw, and Vaughan in poetry and that of Fuller, 
Taylor, and Baxter in prose ; third, in the lighter, merrier 
strain of the Cavalier poets, Carew, Suckling, Lovelace, and 



152 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [17th Cent. 

Herrick who also wrote religious poems. Izaak Walton be- 
longs to none of these classes. The Compleat Angler is his 
best work. 

After the Restoration of 1660 Butler caricatured the Puri- 
tans in Hudibras ; Milton produced his greatest work, Para- 
dise Lost ; and Bunyan wrote the best of allegories, The Pil- 
grim's Progress. 

The greatest writer of the last years of the century was 
Dryden, The drama revived, but valued polish rather than 
sincerity, and demanded indecency and the repression of emo- 
tion. Dryden lowered his work by yielding to the taste of 
the times. He wrote plays, poems on popular subjects, satire, 
religious argument in verse, and translated the ^neid and 
other works. Literary moderation and correctness marked 
the close of the century. 



CHAPTER VII 

CENTURY XVm 

THE CENTURY OF PROSE 

92. Coffee drinking. Coffee drinking had a great 
deal to do with the development of literature in the 
eighteenth century. Some twenty years after Jonson's 
death, coffee became the fashionable drink, and coffee 
houses were opened by the hundred. These houses took 
the place of informal, inexpensive clubs ; and gradually 
one became noted as headquarters for political discus- 
sion, another for social gossip, another for ship news, 
etc. "Will's" became the special meeting-place for lit- 
erary men. Dryden was their chief, and around him 
circled several of those writers who were to do the best 
literary work of the early part of the eighteenth century. 

Not long before Dryden's death, a boy of twelve 
slipped into the edge of the circle and stood gazing at 
the great man with dark, earnest eyes ; for Dryden was 
the poet whom he most reverenced and admired. The 
boy was very small, he was badly deformed, and so 
helpless that he could not stand without supports ; but 
his mind was wonderfully active, and he hoped to be 
able some day to write poems that would make him 
famous. He had already made some attempts that 
were amazingly good for a child. 

93. Alexander Pope, 1688-1744. This boy's name 
was Alexander Pope. His father was a retired mer- 
chant who was exceedingly proud of his precocious son. 



154 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1709 

while his mother looked upon him as the most marvel- 
lous boy that ever lived. The family were Roman Cath- 
olics, and therefore he would not have been allowed to 
enter either of the universities even if he had been 
well ; but he did a vast amount of reading and study- 
ing, though with very little formal instruction. Before 




ALEXANDER POPE 

16SS-1744 

he was twenty-one he had published several poems, he 
was well known among the literary men of the time, 
and associated with them upon equal terms. A drama- 
tist four times his age had asked him for suggestions 
and criticisms. One suggestion which had come to him 
from William Walsh, a critic of the day, became the 
motto of his literary life. "Be correct," said Walsh, 



171 1] THE CENTURY OF PROSE I 55 

"we have had great poets, but never one great poet 
that was correct." Pope set to work to be correct. He 
wrote and rewrote and polished and condensed and re- 
fined. In 171 1, when he was only twenty- j-ssayoa 
three, his Essay on Criticism, came out. There criticism, 
is no originality in the poem ; it is simply a ^''^^' 
combination of what Latin and French critics had said ; 
but the thoughts are so clearly and concisely put that 
they seem new and fresh. For instance, there is no 
startling novelty in the statement that it is not well to 
use either obsolete words or recently formed, unauthor- 
ized words ; but when Pope writes that — 

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold ; 
Alike fantastic, if too new or old : 
Be not the first by whom the new are try'd, 
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside, 

we have a feeling that this is a most excellent way to 
express the thought. This feeling was what gave espe- 
cial pleasure to the men of Queen Anne's day. Each 
separate thought of Pope's stands out like a crystal, and 
this clean-cut definiteness gave people the enjoyment 
that Shakespeare's perfect reading of men and his glow- 
ing imagination gave the people of his time. 

Pope's next subject was even better suited to his tal- 
ents. With the somewhat rough and ready manners of 
the age, a certain man of fashion had cut from the head 
of a maid of honor one of the — 

Two locks which graceful hung behind 
In equal curls, and well conspired to deck 
With shining ringlets the smooth iv'ry neck. 

The young lady was angry, and her family were angry. 
It was suggested to Pope that a mock-heroic poem about 
the act might help to pass the matter off with a laugh. 
This was the origin of The Rape of the Lock, one of 



156 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1714-1725 

the gayest, most sparkling little trifles ever written. 
The Rape of ^^P^ begins with a parody on the usual way of 
the Lock. commencing an epic, and this comical air of 
importance is carried through the whole poem. 
The coming of the maid to adorn the heroine is ex- 
pressed : — 

Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side, 
Trembling begins the sacred rites of pride. 

The adventurous baron resolves to gain the curl, and 
builds to Love an altar consisting of billets-doux, a glove, 
and gilt-edged French romances. The " fays, fairies, 
genii, elves, and demons " are propitious, and he sets 
out. He arms himself with a " little engine," a "two- 
edged weapon," that is, a pair of scissors. 

The meeting points the sacred hair dissever 
From the fair head, for ever and for ever! 

A mimic war ensues and the lock vanishes. It takes its 
place among the stars and " adds new glory to the shin- 
ing sphere." 

Pope's next work was not a mock epic but a real epic, 
Pope's foJ* ^^ translated the Iliad ; later, and with con- 

transiation siderable assistance, the Odyssey, though his 
uiad, work can hardly be called a translation, for he 

1715-1720; knew very little Greek. It is rather a versifica- 
of the -' 

Odyssey, tion of the rendering of others. It is smooth, 
1723-1725. (.|g^j.^ ^j^^ gg^gy |-Q read, but has not a touch of the 
old Greek simplicity or fire. Homer's Iliad comes from 
the wind-swept plain of Troy and the shore of the thun- 
dering sea ; Pope's Iliad from a nicely trimmed garden. 
Nevertheless, gardens are not to be despised, and Pope's 
verses have the rare charm of a most exquisite finish 
and perfectness. Homer wrote, "The stars about the 
bright moon shine clear to see." Pope puts it : — 



i728-| THE CENTURY OF PROSE 1 57 

The moon, refulgent lamp of night ! 
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light. 

Around her throne the vivid planets roll, 
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole. 

It is no wonder that Richard Bentley, one of the greatest 
scholars of the day, said, " It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, 
but you must not call it Homer." 

With the publication of these two works came not only 
fame but money. Pope made himself a home at Twick- 
enham on the Thames, and with his widowed mother 
he spent there the rest of his life. He knew " everybody 
who was worth knowing," he was famous, and he was 
rich ; on the other hand, he was such a sufferer that he 
spoke of his life as "one long disease." To his mother 
he was tenderness itself, and he was capable of a warm 
friendship, though one could not always count on its con- 
tinuance ; but to his enemies he was indeed just what 
they nicknamed him, " the wicked wasp of Twickenham," 
for he never hesitated to revenge in the most venomous 
verses any real or fancied slight. Even in The Rape of 
the Lock there are many scathing lines. At the sever- 
ing of the curl the heroine cries out, and Pope says with 
an undertone of bitterness, — 

Not louder shrieks to pitying heav'n are cast, 
When husbands or when lap-dogs breathe their last; 
Or when rich China vessels fall'n from high, 
Inglitt'ring dust, and pointed fragments lie! 

In 1728 Pope published a most malicious satire, The 
Dunciad, wherein every one who was so unfortunate as 
wittingly or unwittingly to have offended him The Dun- 
was scourged most unmercifully, for he had *''**■ ■'•^^^• 
forgotten his own words, " At every trifle scorn to take 
offence." Pope was the first literary man of his age, and 



158 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE Li732-i734 

he descended from his throne to chastise with his own 
hand every one who had not shown him due reverence. 
Men to whom he owed profound gratitude, but who had 
offended him in some trifie, and men who had been dead 
for years were attacked with equal spitefulness. Never 
was so great ability applied to so contemptible an object. 

94. Pope's Later Years. The best work of Pope's 
Es ay later years was the Essay on Man, one of his 
on Man. Moral Essays. Didactic poetry can never have 
1732-173 ^j^^ winsome charm of imaginative ; but what- 
ever power to please the former may possess is shown 
in these Essays. There are scores of single lines and 
couplets that are as familiar as proverbs. 

Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow. 

An honest man 's the noblest work of God. 

Order is heaven's first law. 

Man never is, but always to be blest. 

And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, 

One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right. 

Pope has given us the perfection of form and finish ; 
but when we ask for " thoughts that breathe and words 
that burn," for thoughts so far beyond our own that 
we must bow in homage, they are lacking. Lofty imagi- 
nation, sympathetic insight, humor, originality, depth, we 
do not find. Pope is great, but he is not of the greatest. 

95. Addison and Steele. When Pope was a boy of 
twelve, there was living in a London garret a man just 
twice his age who was destined to become the best prose 
writer of Queen Anne's reign. He was dignified, re- 
served with strangers, and a little shy ; but his ability 
to write had been so apparent that some time before this 
the Whigs had given him a pension of £,2)^0. This was 
not an infrequent act when the party in power wished to 
secure the adherence of a talented young writer. The 



704] 



THE CENTURY OF PROSE 



159 

and the 



king soon died, however, the Whigs were " out, 
young man, Joseph Addison, was left without j^g^^j^ 
resources. While he was living quietly in Lon- Addison. 

1672-1719. 

don, news came of the victory of Blenheim, and 

for perhaps the only time in the history of England, the 




JOSEPH ADDISON 
1672-1719 

government set out in quest of a poet. A friend recom. 
mended Addison, and he wrote a poem on the battle. 
One passage compared Marlborough to an angel who — 

Pleased the Almighty's orders to periorm, 
Rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm. 

These lines carried their author far on the road to suc- 
cess. One office after another was given to him, and 



i60 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1709 

the more he was known, the better he was liked. It was 
not easy to know him, for although with his friends he 
was the best companion in the world, the entrance of a 
stranger would silence him in a moment. Nevertheless, 
his kindness of heart could not be hidden, and this politi- 
cian who could not make a speech was so warmly loved 
in Ireland, where he held a government position, that 
Dean Swift wrote him that the Tories and the Whigs 
were contending which should speak best of him. 

While he was in Ireland a letter came to him from an 

old school friend, Richard Steele, which opened the 

way to a greater than political glory, though 

Steele. possiblv when Addison read the letter, he only 

1672-1729 *■ J ■ -^ 

smiled and said to himself, " What will Dick do 
next ! " " Dick " was one of Addison's worshippers. He 
had been a cheerful, warm-hearted boy, always getting 
into trouble, but so lovable that some one was usually 
ready to come to the rescue ; and now that he was a man, 
he had changed very little. He was married, but his 
"dearest Prue," his "prettiest woman," sometimes lived 
in luxury and sometimes was hard put to it to live at all 
in a house where food and fuel were so much a matter of 
chance. Steele had written some plays which were 
rather dull ; and he had written a religious book which 
gave him considerable trouble, for his friends were always 
expecting him, he complained, to live up to his writings. 
Plainly, however, his mind turned toward literature, and 
as a reward for some pamphlets that he had produced, 
the position of Gazetteer had been given him, that is, 
the charge of the small sheet which published govern- 
ment news. 

96. The Tatler, 1709-1711. These gazettes were 
exceedingly dull, and it occurred to Steele that to pub- 
lish a small paper containing not only the news but a 



1709-1711] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 161 

little interesting reading matter might be a successful 
undertaking. This paper was the famous Taller, and 
it was of this that he wrote to Addison with so much 
enthusiasm. It was already well established, and instead 
of only being sent to the country by the tri-weekly post, 
as Steele had expected, it had been caught up by the 
London folk with the greatest eagerness. Its popularity 
was no marvel, for it was bright and entertaining. Steele 
wrote according to his mood ; at one time a serious little 
sermon on ranking people according to their real merits 
and not according to their riches or honors ; at another 
time a criticism of the theatre ; at another, a half-jesting, 
half-earnest page on giving testimonials. This playful 
manner of saying serious things, with its opportunities 
for humor and pathos and character drawing, was exactly 
the mode of writing adapted to Addison, though he had 
never discovered it, — no great wonder, for this sort of 
essay was something entirely new. Bacon wrote "essays," 
but with him the word meant simply a preliminary sketch 
of a subject as opposed to a finished treatise. These 
light, graceful chats on politics, manners, literature, and 
art were meant for the day only, but they were so well 
done that they have become classics. 

Suddenly Steele announced that the Tatler had come 
to its end. One reason that he gave for its discontinu- 
ance was that the previous numbers would make four 
volumes! He published them in book form with a whim- 
sical and generous little acknowledgment of the help 
that he had received from Addison. "This good Office 
he performed with such Force of Genius, Humour, Wit, 
and Learning, that I fared like a distressed Prince, who 
calls in a powerful Neighbour to his Aid ; I was undone 
by my Auxiliary ; when I had once called him in, I could 
not subsist without Dependance on him." 



l62 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1711-1713 

97. The Spectator, 1711-1713. The Tatler had run 
for nearly two years. Two months after its closing num- 
ber appeared, Steele and Addison united in publishing 
the Spectator, which came out every day but Sunday. 
gjj. This is even more famous than the Tatler, and 
Roger do its fame is due chiefly to "Sir Roger de Cov- 

overey. gj-jgy^" ^ character introduced by Steele and 
continued by Addison. Sir Roger is drawn as having 
been a gay young man of the town ; but at the time of 
his appearance in the Spectator he is a middle-aged coun- 
try gentleman, hale and hearty, loved by every one, 
believing himself to be the sternest of quarter-session 
justices, but in reality the softest-hearted man that ever 
sat on the bench. His servants and his tenants all love 
him. He has a chaplain whom he has chosen for good 
sense and understanding of backgammon, rather than for 
learning, as he did not wish to be " insulted with Latin 
and Greek" at his own table. 

All through these essays there is kindly humor, viva- 
city, and originality ; and all is expressed with exquisite 
simplicity and clearness in a style so perfectly suited to 
the thought that the reader often forgets to notice its 
excellence. The subjects, as in the Tatler, were any- 
thing and everything, and the essays themselves were 
the chat of refined, intelligent people ; they were a kind 
of ideal coffee-house "extension." 

98. Addison's other work. The Spectator came to 
an end as suddenly as the Tatler. A third paper, the 
Guardian, was begun after a short time ; but between 
Cato. these two Addison brought out his drama Cato. 
1713. jj. ^^g ^ perfectly well-bred play, — dignified 
and cold. The Spectator represented Addison with his 
friends ; Cato represented Addison with strangers. But, 
most unreasonably, this rather uninteresting drama was 



I704] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 163 

a distinct success ; for both Tories and Whigs claimed to 
be described in its fine speeches, and every one wanted 
to see it. Addison probably thought it far superior to his 
essays ; but neither that nor any other poeti- 
cal work of his is of special value, except a few ^™°'" 
of his hymns. Addison's religion was sincere, and gave 
to his pen the inspiration which the theatre failed to 
furnish. His paraphrase of the twenty-third psalm, " The 
Lord my pasture shall prepare," is excellent ; but in 
"The spacious firmament on high" there is a certain 
majesty and breadth that has rarely been excelled. He 
became the Secretary of State, but died when only forty- 
seven years of age. Merry Dick Steele became Sir 
Richard on the accession of George I. Before he was 
sixty, his health failed and he retired to the country. 
There is a tradition that in the feebleness of his last 
months he insisted on being carried out to see the 
villagers dance on the green and to give them prizes. 

99. Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745. There were two 
men of the time of Queen Anne whose names are familiar 
to-day chiefly because each wrote a book that children 
like. The name of the first was Jonathan Swift, that 
of the second was Daniel Defoe. The first time that 
Addison saw Swift was at a coffee-house. A tall stranger 
in the garb of a clergyman stalked into the room, laid 
his hat on a table, and began to stride back and forth. 
After half an hour he paid the usual penny at the bar 
and walked away. This was the eccentric clergyman 
who had come from his home in Ireland to make a visit 
to England. He had been secretary to Sir William 

Temple, and he had written a book called the _ 

The Tale of 
Tale of a Ttib. This is an allegory wherein a a Tub. 

dying father gives his sons Peter, Martin, and ^^°*" 

Jack (that is, the Church of Rome, the Lutherans, and 



I64 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1704 

the Calvinists) each a coat which will last throughout 
their lives if kept clean. The book describes the comi- 
cal and sometimes unseemly acts of the three. Swift 
showed great ability to write clear, strong prose ; but he 
used coarse mockery, reckless audacity, and cynical 
scorn, such unfit weapons for religious discussion that 
the clergyman author should have given up all hope of 
advancement in the church. His book, however, was so 
brilliant a satire that it gave him at once high rank as 
a wielder of the pen. 

In 1704, the year of the publication oi the Tale of a 
Tub, he also brought out the Battle of the Books. This 
TheBatue had been written some time before to help Sir 
Books. William Temple out of an embarrassing situa- 
1704. tion. Sir William had written an essay claim- 

ing that ancient literature was superior to modern, and 
had praised particularly a work which was soon after- 
ward shown to be a modern forgery. The secretary 
dashed into the fray, treating the dispute with a sarcastic 
seriousness which soon became coarse and savage. 

Swift had charge of a tiny parish not far from Dublin, 
but he went often to England, sometimes remaining 
several years. He wrote political pamphlets whose 
malignant ridicule delighted his politician friends. He 
cared little for money or for fame, but he longed for 
political power; and when he saw it dropped lightly 
into the hands of men who had not half his talents, he 
felt a savage scorn of those who would give authority so 
easily to men who held it so unworthily. He hoped to 
be given an English bishopric, but in view of the wrath 
which his Tale of a Tub had aroused, the utmost that 
his friends ventured to do was to make him Dean of St. 
Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, Each piece of satire 
that Swift produced seemed more savage than what 



1736] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 165 

had preceded it. One of the most bitter is his Modest 
Proposal, which suggested that the children ^j^^^gg^ 
of poor Irish parents should be served for food Proposal, 
on the tables of the landlords, who, he says, ^ ®" 
"as they have already devoured most of the parents, 
seem to have the best title to the children." The coldj 




JONATHAN SWIFT 
1667-1745 

business-like method by which he arranges the details of 
his plan is as horrible as it is powerful. Gid- , 

liver s Travels was written as a satire, and Travels, 
expressed his hatred and scorn of men perhaps ^^^®" 
more fiercely than any other of his writings ; but " Gulli- 
ver's" journeys to Lilliput and Brobdingnag are, forget- 
ting the allegory and leaving out the occasional coarse« 



l66 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [172^ 

ness, most charming stories for children. Nothing 
could be more minutely accurate than his description of 
the little people of Lilliput, who are barely six inches 
high. They bring him a hogshead of wine, which holds 
just half a pint. They ascertain his height by the aid of 
a quadrant, and, finding its relation to theirs, they decide 
that he needs exactly 1724 times as much food as one 
of themselves. Swift makes no slip. From beginning 
to end, everything is consistent with the country of six- 
inch people. In Brobdingnag, matters are reversed, for 
Brobdingnag is a land of giants where Gulliver has a 
terrible encounter with a rat of the size of a large 
mastiff, has to swim for his life in a vast bowl of cream, 
and comes nearest to death when a year-old baby tries 
to cram him into its mouth. So perfectly is the illusion 
carried out that the hero is represented on his return to 
his own country as stooping to enter his house because 
the door seems to him so dangerously low. 

If it were not for chance words and for Swift's let- 
ters, we should think of him as half mad with hatred and 
Character scorn ; but two men as unlike as Pope and 
oi Swift. Addison cherished his friendship. Pope wrote 
that he loved and esteemed him, and Addison dedicated 
a book to him as " the most agreeable companion, the 
truest friend, and the greatest genius of his age." 
Somewhere in his nature there was a charm which held 
both the "wicked wasp of Twickenham " and the gentle, 
ever courteous Addison. His letters, too, written to 
Letters to "Stella," his pet name for a young girl whom 
"Stella." he knew and taught at Sir William Temple's, 
are frankly affectionate ; and even as she grew to mature 
womanhood, he still reported to her all the chat of the 
day and the little happenings to himself in which he 
knew she would be interested. 



I702-I745] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 167 

Be you lords or be you earls, 
You must write to naughty girls, 

he wrote to her. In 1728 Stella died, and this hater of 
his race and lover of individuals sorrowfully held for 
an hour the unopened letter that he knew announced 
her death. There was from the first a wild strain of 
insanity in this many-sided man, and for several years 
before his death his mind failed. He died in 1745. 

100. Daniel Defoe, 16619-1731. Swift would have 
looked upon it as the very irony of fate if he had known 
that his most bitter satire had become a book for chil- 
dren ; but Daniel Defoe would have been pleased, though 
perhaps a little amused, to find that his Robinson Crusoe, 
which he published as a real account of a real man, had 
become not only a children's book but a work of the 
imagination. Defoe was educated to be a non-conformist 
clergyman, but he was little adapted to the profession. 
He was like Steele in his proneness to get into scrapes, 
but unlike Steele, he could usually find a way out. 
When " King Monmouth " made his attempt to gain the 
throne, Defoe was one of his adherents ; but in some 
way he escaped punishment, and afterwards became a 
strong supporter of William and Mary. He soon showed 
that he could write most forcible English, and ^he 
his Shortest Way with Dissenters proved him shortest 
almost as much of a satirist as Swift himself. Dissenters 
There is a vast difference, however, in the '^^^'^• 
satire of the two men ; for Defoe shows nothing of 
Swift's hatred of his race ; and, earnest as he makes 
himself appear in his pamphlets, we always think of him 
as smiling wickedly over his pen to think how well he 
was befooling his readers. In this pamphlet he suc- 
ceeded almost too well. He suggested that an excellent 
means of securing religious uniformity would be to hang 



l68 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1692-1703 

dissenting ministers and banish their people. It was a 
time of severe laws and stern retribution, and the Dis- 
senters were actually alarmed. Moreover, Parliament, 
too, persisted in taking the matter seriously, declared 
the pamphlet a libel on the English nation, and con- 
demned its author to stand in the pillory. Most men 
would have been somewhat troubled, but Defoe and his 
Ode to the P^^ were equal to the occasion; and while in 
Pillory. prison awaiting his punishment, he wrote an 
"^ ■ Ode to the Pillory, which he called a state 

machine for punishing fancy. He closed with a message 
to his judges, — 

Tell them : The men that placed him here 
Are scandals to the Times ! 
Are at a loss to find his guilt, 
And can't commit his crimes ! 

Defoe carried the day. He stood in the pillory ; but 
flowers were heaped around him, he was cheered by 
crowds of admiring bystanders, and thousands of copies 
of his Ode were sold. 

Defoe was the most inventive, original man of his 
age, and he even published an Essay on Projects, sug- 
Essayon gesting all sorts of new things. Among them 
written' ^^^ ^^^ P^^^ ^°'* gi'^i^g to women the education 
aDouti692. which was then limited to men. He said, "If 
knowledge and understanding had been useless additions 
to the sex, God Almighty would never have given them 
capacities ; for he made nothing useless." Strikingly 
similar to these words of Defoe is the statement of 
Matthew Vassar a century and a half later in founding 
the first college for women : " It occurred to me that 
woman, having received from her Creator the same in- 
tellectual constitution as man, has the same right as man 
to intellectual culture and development." 



1719] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 169 

One of Defoe's projects came to more fame and 
importance than he dreamed. Every one was interested 
in a sailor named Alexander Selkirk, who had been 




DANIEL DEFOE 
1659-1:31 



abandoned on the island of Juan Fernandez, anct who, 
after five years of loneliness, had been rescued and 
brought to England. Defoe went with the rest of the 
world to see the man and talk with him ; but while 
others soon forgot his story, Defoe remem- jjQ,,i^gQ 
bered, and a few years later he wrote Robinson Crusoe. 
Crusoe, an account of a man who was wrecked 
on a desert island with nothing except a knife, a pipe, a 



I/O ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1722 

little tobacco in a box, and a hope of getting some 
articles from the wreck of the vessel. This book became 
a favorite at once. It was so realistic that every reader 
fancied himself in the sailor's place and planned with 
him what to do for safety and comfort. This is just 
where Defoe's unique power lies, in putting himself in 
the place of his characters. In Robinson Crusoe he im- 
agined himself on the island and thought how he could 
get to the vessel, for instance, and how he should feel 
to find a footprint on the sand when he supposed that he 
was entirely alone. Having fancied what he should do, 
it was easy to put his thoughts into clear, simple Eng- 
lish, never forgetting that his aim was to tell a story, 
not to ornament phrases. The book was so successfu) 
that Defoe wrote a continuation of the adventures of 
his hero. It was very like him to insert an aggrieved 
little preface, taking high moral grounds against the 
"envious people" who had called his work a romance, 
and saying that doing such deeds was "a Practice all 
honest Men abhor." 

Three years after Robinson Crusoe appeared, Defoe 
produced \\\s Journal of the Plagite Year, which was writ- 
A Journal ten, the title-page gravely asserts, "by a citizen 
°V^° who continued all the while in London." This 

Plague 

Year. 1722. was literally true, although the aforesaid citizen 
was but four or five years old at the time of the visita- 
tion. The book describes minutely all the details of 
the terrible season, from the piteous " Lord, have mercy 
upon us !" written on the houses to the coming of the 
horrible dead cart that sometimes carried away the 
dying with the dead. It is most impressive, and has 
more than once been quoted as authority on the events 
of the pestilence. Defoe wrote several picaresque stories, 
nr stories having rascals for heroes, each tale expected. 



1702-I7i4] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 171 

according to the preface of the author, to bring any 
wicked reader to repentance. 

101. The Age of Queen Anne. — The novel. Taking 
a general view of the Age of Queen Anne, we see that 
it was marked, first, by the development of literary 
criticism ; and, second, by the excellence of its prose 
and the beginning of the periodical. In poetry espe- 
cially certain principles were tacitly adopted as producing 
the correctness which the age demanded. The five-beat 
line of Dryden and Pope, with the thought neatly en- 
closed within a well-polished rhymed couplet, became 
the generally accepted ideal of perfection. This did not 
tend to a free manifestation of poetical ability ; but it 
did tend to produce prose so accurate, graceful, and 
agreeable as to become the glory of the Age of Anne. 
Its best manifestation was in the periodicals whose estab- 
lishment was the second distinguishing mark of the age. 
They had been preceded by newspapers ; but the Tatlet 
and the Spectator were not bare chronicles of events, 
they were not the controversial weeklies of the Civil 
War, they were real literature, and their prose had not 
only usefulness but beauty. 

Prose was soon to discover a new field, the novel. 
There had been Elizabethan romances. The Pilgrim s 
Progress, Dryden's translations, and the slender thread 
of narrative fiction in the Spectator. Then had come 
Robinson Crnsoe, which, like The Pilgrim s Progress, was 
artistic enough to satisfy the most critical and simple 
enough to delight the most ignorant. The next step 
was the novel, that is, the story which pictures 
real life and deals with the passions, especially 
that of love. The novel must have a plot, it must have 
prominent and secondary characters ; and, just as in a 
play, these characters must act naturally and must 



172 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 



[1740 



change as they are acted upon by incidents or by other 
characters. 

102. Samuel Richardson, 1689-1761. The first book 
that fully answered these requirements was written 

by Samuel Richard- 
son, a successful 
middle-aged printer. 
He had never writ- 
ten a book, but he 
had written letters 
by the score, and 
had written them so 
well that some one 
suggested his pub- 
lishing a series of 
letters about every- 
day home life to 
serve as models for 
those who lacked his 
ability. The idea 
struck Richardson 
favorably, and it oc- 
curred to him that 
the interest would 
be increased if there 
were some thread of 
connection between the letters. The result was Pam- 
ela, or Virtue Rewarded, the first English novel. It 
Pamela. came out in 1740, declaring on its title-page 
Rewarded. ^^^^ ^^^ object was *' to Cultivate the principles 
1740. of Virtue and Religion." Pamela Andrews is 

a friendless young woman who is persecuted by the at- 
tentions of a fashionable reprobate. Finally, after being 
converted to honor and uprightness by her virtue, he 




SAMUEL RICHARDSON 
16S9-1761 



1 742-1 749] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 1 73 

offers her marriage, and she accepts him. The story 
goes on, volume after volume ; but the fiction-hungry 
people of 1740 were sorry when it came to an end. 

103. Henry Fielding, 1707-1754. Everybody was 
interested in Pamela, but a writer of comic plays named 
Henry Fielding was not only interested but amused ; 
for the sentimentality of the book and its rather patron- 
izing tone of giving good moral advice struck him as 
being ludicrous. Straightway he seized his pen and 
began in caricature Joseph Andreivs. Joseph is 
Pamela's brother, and he is as much tormented Andrews, 
by the devotion of a certain widow as was ^^*^" 
Pamela by the attentions of her persecutor. Fielding 
had more ability to make his characters seem real than 
Richardson, but he was not the superior of the publisher 
in delicate strokes and careful attention to details. 

Within thirteen years after the appearance of Pamela, 
Richardson wrote two more novels. Sir Charles Grandi 
son and his best work, Clarissa Harloive. There gj^igg^ 
were eight volumes of Clarissa, and after the Hariowe. 
appearance of the first four, Richardson was ^*^' 
besieged by letters without number, telling him how 
their writers had wept over his pathos, and beseeching 
him to give the story a happy ending. Fielding, too, 
produced other novels, and of these, Tom Jones ^^^ ^^^^^ 
is his best work. Fielding is strong and robust. 1749. 
His novels are as breezy as if they had been written on 
a mountain top and as true to life as if they had come 
from the very heart of a London crowd. Unfortunately, 
they as well as, in varying degree, all the novels of the 
time, are marked by what seems to the present age a 
revolting coarseness. 

104. Tobias SmoUett, 1721-1771. Two other nov. 
elists were soon added to the company, Tobias George 



174 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1748-176& 

Smollett and Laurence Sterne. Smollett studied medi- 
cine and went to sea as a ship doctor, but his real interest 
Roderick ^^^ ^" literature, and in 1748 he wrote Roderick 
Random. Random, which pictures many scenes from his 

own life, with here and there a bit of tender- 
ness or whimsicality. Several other works followed 
this, animated and interesting, but without Fielding's 
accurate character drawing. 

105. Laurence Sterne, 1713-1763. Sterne was an 
Irish clergyman with a good income and an irregular 
talent. His three works are as inconsistent as the man 

himself, for one is a collection of sermons : one, 

Tristram ^ . ' . , , ,' ' 

Shandy. Tristram Shandy, a whimsical delineation of 
1759-1767. j^Qj^g lifg y^\i\^ one or two delightful characters ; 
and one, The Sentifnental Journey. In this Sterne is 
TheSenu- sometimes frankly immoral ; sometimes he 
Journey gives US beautiful little descriptions ; some- 
1768. times his sentiment is ridiculously affected ; 

sometimes he gives such passages as the following 
meditation on the Bastile : — 

And as for the Bastile — the terror is in the word. — Make the 
most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word 
for a tower ; — and a tower is but another word for a house you 
can't get out of. — Mercy on the gouty ! for they are in it twice a 
year — but with nine livres a- day, and pen and ink and paper and 
patience, albeit a man can't get out, he may do very well within, — 
at least for a month or six weeks ; at the end of which, if he is a 
harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better 
and wiser man than he went in. 

After thus moralizing himself into satisfaction, sud- 
denly he hears a starling in a cage who has learned to 
say the one sentence, " I can't get out." Sterne's mood 
changes. He writes a glowing address to liberty, pic- 
tures one captive and his sorrows, and sends his ser- 
vant away, "not willing he should see anything upon 



1750-1780] THE CENTURY OF PROSE I75 

my cheek which would cost the honest fellow a heart- 
ache." 

106. Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784. The decade 
marked by the beginning of the novel was from 1740 
to 1750. The chief place of literary honor during the 
thirty years following 1750 is given to a man whose 
essays are not so good as those of Addison and Steele, 
whose dictionary was antiquated long ago, whose prin- 
cipal story is voted dry, whose edition of Shakespeare 




is worthless, and whose Lives of the Poets alone is of 
any special value to-day. This man was Samuel Johnson. 
He was the sickly, nervous son of a Lichfield bookseller. 



176 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1755 

He made his way to the university, pitifully poor, but 

too independent to accept help. A few years later, he 

opened a private school for boys. He was very large and 

awkward ; he rolled from side to side when he walked ; 

he grumbled and muttered, and his face, seamed and 

scarred by disease, trembled and twitched. The wonder 

is not that the school was a failure, but that even one 

pupil ventured to attend it. After the failure Johnson 

went to London with a capital of twopence half-penny 

and a partly completed tragedy. His aim was to find 

literary work ; and for some time he did whatever there 

was to do. After ten years or more of drudgery, he was 

little richer than at first ; but he had become so well 

known that several booksellers united in offer- 
Johnson's . , . f~r 1 11 

Dictionary, mg hmi fifteen hundred gumeas to prepare a 
1755. dictionary of the English language. Seven or 

eight years of hard work passed, and the book was com- 
pleted. It shows that its author knew nothing of etymo- 
logy, — but in those days comparatively little was known 
of the science by any one, — its definitions are some- 
times exceedingly good, and sometimes based upon the 
whims of the writer ; for instance, he hated the Scotch, 
and therefore he defined oats as " grain which in England 
is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports 
the people." It was still the feeling in England that a 
book of such importance should be dedicated 
Patronage. ^^ ^ ,, patron," who was expected to return the 
honor by an interest in the work and generous assistance. 
The plan of the dictionary had been addressed to Lord 
Chesterfield, and this dainty nobleman at first encour- 
aged its author; but he soon tired of the uncouth scholar, 
whom he called " a respectable Hottentot, who throws 
his meat anywhere but dawn his throat," and was "not 
at home" to his calls. 



»7SO-i759 THE CENTURY OF PROSE 177 

When it was known that the dictionary was about to 
appear, Chesterfield became interested, and hoped, in 
spite of his neglect, to secure the dedication to himself. 
Ke published letters recommending it, but they were 
too late. Johnson published in return a reply which was 
calm and dignified, but so scathing that it practically 
ended literary patronage save that of the. public. The 
book came out. It was infinitely better than anything 
preceding, and it was received with an enthusiasm which 
in this age of dictionaries can hardly be imagined. 

In the course of the seven years that Johnson spent 

on the dictionary, he published the Ramd/er, a. periodical 

made up of essays written after the fashion of 

Addison's, but lacking Addison's light touch Rambiec. 

and graceful humor. Neither these nor the 1750-1752. 

dictionary added any large amount to the author's 

finances; and when, in 1759, the death of his mother 

occurred, he had not money for the funeral expenses. 

To raise it, he wrote in the evenings of one Rasseias, 

week, Rasseias, Prince of Abyssinia. This is ^!^*'® °! 

•' -^ Abyssinia, 

usually called a story, but the characters serve 1759. 

only as mouthpieces for the various reflections of the 

author. "Abyssinia" is simply a convenient name for 

an imaginary country. 

Three years after the publication of the dictionary the 
government offered Johnson a pension of ;^300. Even 
in his poverty the independent lexicographer Johnson's 
hesitated to accept it ; and well he might, for pension, 
in his dictionary he had defined a pension as "pay given 
to a state hireling for treason to his country;" but he 
was finally made to see that the offered gift was not a 
bribe but a reward for what he had already accom- 
plished. He accepted it, and then life became easier. 

107. James Boswell, 1740-1795. It was about this 



178 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1763-1784 

time that he met a Scotchman named Boswell, who be- 
came his humble worshipper. Wherever Johnson went, 
Boswell followed. Boswell asked all sorts of questions, 
both useful and idle, just to see what reply his oracle 
would make. The great man snubbed the little man, 
and the little man hastened home to write in his jour- 
nal what a superb snub it was. Mrs. Boswell was not 
pleased. " I have seen a bear led by a man," she said, 
"but never before a man led by a bear." Johnson once 
wrote her, "The only thing in which I have the honour 
to agree with you is in loving him ; " for the young wor- 
shipper had at last won a return of affection from his 
idol. For twenty years he wrote at night every word 
that he could remember of Johnson's conversation 
through the day. It was well worth noting, for Johnson 

was the best talker of the age. Now that his 
HOJinson s ^ 

conversa- pension relieved him of want, he had little in- 

^°^' clination to make the effort required by writ- 

ing, but he was ever ready to talk. Much of his best 
talking was done at the famous Literary Club, which he. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Edmund Burke founded. He 
always seemed to feel that literary composition required 
the use of long words and a ponderous rolling up of 
phrases; but his conversation was direct and simple. 
He argued, he spoke of history, of biography, of liter- 
ature or morals. His scholarship, his powerful intel- 
lect, and his colloquial powers gave value to whatever 
he said. When a new book came out, the first question 
asked by the public was, " What does the Club say of 
it.?" Johnson was the great man of the Club, and for 
years he was really, as he has so often been called, the 
literary dictator of England. 

108. Johnson's later work. Durmg the last twenty 
years of his life he did a comparatively small amount of 



1765-1784] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 1 79 

literary work. He edited Shakespeare, an undertaking 

for which his slight knowledge of the six- Edition of 

teenth century drama had given him but an Shake- 
■' ° speare. 

ill preparation. He journeyed to Scotland, i765. 

and was treated so kindly that much of his prejudice 

against the Scotch melted away. His letters about this 

journey, written to a friend, were easy and TheJour- 

natural ; but when he made them into a book, Hg^j\°^eg° 

The Journey to the Hebrides, they were trans- 1775. 

lated into the ceremoniously elaborate phraseology 

which alone he regarded as worthy of print. His best 

work was his Lives of the Poets, a series of The Lives 

sketches prepared for a collection of English o*tiie Poets, 

^ ^ ° 1779 ; en- 

poetry. These were intended to be very short, largedin 

but Johnson became interested in them, and ^'^^^' 
did far more than he had agreed. The result is not 
only brief "lives" of the authors but criticisms of their 
writings. These criticisms are not always just, for 
sometimes Johnson's strong prejudices and sometimes 
his lack of the power to appreciate certain qualities 
stood in the way of fairness ; but, fair or unfair, they 
are the honest expression of an independent, powerful 
mind, and every one is well worth reading. This was 
Johnson's last work. He died in 1784. 

109. Oliver Goldsmith, 1728-1774. One of John- 
son's special friends at the Club was the poet Oliver 
Goldsmith, a genial, gay-hearted Irishman, a boy all his 
life. What to do with him was always a puzzling ques- 
tion to his friends. His bishop would not accept him 
as a clergyman, either because of his pranks at the 
university or because of the scarlet breeches which he 
insisted upon wearing. A devoted uncle sent him to 
London to study law ; but on the way he was beguiled 
into gambling and did not reach the city. He began to 



l8o ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1760-1766 

study medicine at Edinburgh ; made his way to Leyden 
for further instruction ; borrowed money to go to Paris, 
but spent it on rare tulip bulbs for his uncle ; and finally 
set out to travel over the Continent "with but one spare 
shirt, a flute, and a single guinea." He took his degree 
probably at Padua, went to London, read proof for 
Richardson, acted as tutor in an academy, wrote chil- 
dren's books — possibly Goody Two Shoes. He thought 
of going to India as a physician, of exploring central 
Letters Asia, of journeying to Aleppo to study the 
fromacit- arts of the East. He had no special longing 

Izenol the , 1 . , r , m, f , , , 

World. to become a knight of the quill, but he needed 

1760-1761. nioney and he wrote. Letters from a Citizen 
of the World brought him a small sum ; an agreeable 
History oi kittle History of Englajid brought more; but 
England. Goldsmith had no more providence than a spar- 
^^ ■ row, and soon Johnson, like his early friends in 

Ireland, began to wonder what to do with " Noll." His 
careless fashion of living was entirely different from 
Johnson's sturdy uprightness ; but Johnson's heart was 
big enough to sympathize with him, and when a mes- 
sage came one morning that Goldsmith was in great 
trouble, Johnson guessed what the matter was and sent 
him a guinea, following it himself as soon as possible. 

Goldsmith had not paid his rent, and his landlady had 
arrested him. The two men discussed what could be 
done, and Goldsmith produced the manuscript of a novel 
. ready for the press. Johnson carried it to a 
oiwake- booksellcr and sold it for £,60. This was the 
Held. 1766. ^^^j^^jg^j.jp^ ^^ ^j^g Vicar of Wakefield; but the 

publisher did not realize what a prize he had won, and 
TheTrav- ^as in HO haste to bring the book out. In the 
eiier. 1764. mean time, Goldsmith's Traveller appeared. 
Then there was a sensation at the Club ; for, save 



1764-1766] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 181 

by Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and perhaps a few others, 
Goldsmith had been looked upon as a mere literary 
drudge. He had felt the unspoken contempt, and had 
been awkward and ill at ease. Now that the Club and 




OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

I 728-1 774 



the other literary folk of the day declared that the 
Traveller was the best poem that had appeared since 
the death of Pope, Goldsmith's peculiarities were no 
longer called awkwardness, but the whims of a man of 
genius. Then came out the Vicar of Wakefield with its 
ridiculous plot, its delightful humor, its gentleness, its 
comical situations, and the exquisite grace of style that 
marked the work of Goldsmith's pen, whether poem or 
novel or history. Again the literary world was delighted ; 



l82 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1768-1773 

but the j£6o received for the manuscript had long ago 
The Good- been Spent, His next work was a comedy, T";^^ 
Natured Good-Natiired Man. This gave him ;!^500 ; 
"*■ ^"^^ ' and straightway he began to live as if he were 
to have ;£"500 a month. Soon his pockets were empty, 
and the much praised Dr. Goldsmith was again at the 
beck and call of the booksellers. He wrote history, 
TheDe- natural history, whatever they called for; one 
sorted vn- thing was as easy as another. In 1770 he wrote 
lage. 1770. jy^^ Deserted Village. Like almost all of Pope's 
work, this is written in the rhymed heroic couplet, but 
here the resemblance ends. Pope's writings were pol- 
ished ; Goldsmith's were marked by an inimitable natu- 
ral charm, the charm of a graceful style, of a tenderness 
and delicate humor of which Pope never dreamed. The 
idea of the poem is pathetic ; but the parts that come to 
mind oftenest are the sympathetic description of the 
village pastor who was " passing rich with forty pounds 
a year," and the picture of the schoolmaster : — 

In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill. 
For, even tho' vanquished, he could argue still ; 
While words of learned length and thundering sound 
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ; 
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 
That one small head could carry all he knew. 

Once more Goldsmith wrote a play, She Stoops to 

Conquer. This was founded upon his own adventures 

„^ «. when first possessed of a guinea and a bor- 
She stoops ^ . , , . , 

toconiiuer. rowed horse. "Where is the best house m the 
1773. place } " he had demanded in a strange village 

with all the airs that he fancied to be the mark of an 
experienced traveller. The home of a wealthy gentle- 
man was mischievously pointed out, and the young fel- 
low rode up to the door, gave his orders right and left, 



1756-1775] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 183 

and finally invited his host and family to join him in a 
bottle of wine. The host had discovered that the con- 
sequential youngster was the son of an old friend, and 
he carried on the mistake till the boy was about to take 
his leave. 

This play was Goldsmith's last work. His income 
had become sufficient for comfort; but he had no idea 
how to manage it, and he was always in debt. He died 
when not yet forty-six years of age, the same careless, 
generous, lovable boy to the end. His bust was placed 
in Westminster Abbey by the Club. Johnson wrote the 
inscription, which said that he "left scarcely any style 
of writing untouched, and touched nothing that he did 
not adorn." 

110. Edmund Burke, 1729-1797. This period, al- 
ready so rich in essays and novels and poetry, was 
also marked by oratory and history. Its greatest orator 
was Edmund Burke, an Irishman, who made his way 
to England and began his literary work by publishing 
essays about the time when Johnson's die- onthesub' 
tionary came out, the most famous being On ^^l^^ 
the Sitblinie and Beaittifnl. Johnson admired i756. 
him heartily, and felt that in him he had an opponent 
worthy of his steel. "That fellow calls forth all my 
powers," he said. At another time he declared that a 
stranger could not talk with Burke five minutes in the 
street without saying to himself, " This is an extraordi- 
nary man." 

Burke entered Parliament and was one of the most 
prominent figures of the House in the stormy days pre- 
ceding the American Revolution. Then it was speech on 
that he made his famous Speech on Concilia- ^"^h^Amer 
tion with America. On the part of the govern- ica. 1775. 
ment he was the most prominent prosecutor of Warren 



I84 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [i759-i790 

Hastings for abuse of power in India. The Reign of 
Reflections Terror in France called forth his Reflections on 
on the the French Revolution. Burke was not merely 

volution. a politician ; he was a thinker and orator and 
1790. pQgt ^^Q devoted himself to politics. The 

thought is always first with him, but in the expression 
of the thought he is generous in his use of poetical 
adornment ; and yet his adornment is vastly more than 
a mere decoration. In his Conciliation, for instance, no 
statistics would have given his audience nearly so good 
an idea of the energy and enterprise of the colonists as 
his picturesque description of the manner in which they 
had carried on the whale fishery : — 

Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, 
and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of 
Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking for them 
beneath the Arctic Circle, we hear that they have pierced into the 
opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and 
engaged under the frozen Serpent of the north. 

111. William Robertson, 1721-1793. The historians 
of the eighteenth century are represented by William 
Robertson, David Hume, and Edward Gibbon. Rob- 
ertson was a Scotch clergyman who wrote of three 
different countries, A History of Scotland during the 
Reigns of Queen Mary and James the Sixth, in 1759; 
then The History of Charles V. of Germany ; and finally, 
A History of America. 

112. David Hume, 1711-1776. David Hume was 
also a Scotchman, a man of such indomitable perse- 
verance that his energy was not conquered even by 
years of unsuccessful effort. At twenty -three he de- 
termined to devote himself to literature. His first book 
was a failure, but he struggled on with many failures 
and small success, He was not the kind of man to be 



1754-1787] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 185 

discouraged, and with the utmost composure he set to 
work on a History of England. The first vol- History oi 
ume failed. He wrote a second. That failed. ^"|J"*" 
He wrote a third. It was received with some i76i, 
slight interest. He continued, and at last the reading 
world began to appreciate what he had done. They 
discovered that whatever was narrated was told vividly, 
that Hume recognized a great event when he saw it, 
and took pains to trace not only its effect but the causes 
which led up to it ; and that he was interested not only 
in great events but in the people and their ways. One 
fault was common to both Hume and Robertson, or 
possibly in some degree to their age, a lack of historical 
accuracy, the most unpardonable fault in a writer of 
history. 

113. Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794. No such charge 
can be made against the writings of Edward Gibbon. 
He was an Englishman with whom, even as a boy, the 
love of history was a passion. The idea of History oi 
writing the History of the Decline and Fall of ^'^J^jj^j^ 
the Roman Empire came to him in Rome in the Roman 
1764, but the first volume did not appear until ^^g*" 
1776. The labor involved in preparing this i787. 
work was enormous. It was not the simple story of a 
single people, but a complicated narrative involved with 
the history of all Europe. Merely to collect the neces- 
sary knowledge was a gigantic task. It demanded a most 
powerful intellect to arrange the facts, and to show their 
proper connection ; a remarkable literary ability to pre- 
sent them clearly and attractively. All this Gibbon did, a 
little ponderously sometimes, but vividly and eloquently. 
He is by far the greatest of the eighteenth century his- 
torians, 

114. New qualities in literature. In the literature 



Iii6 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1751 

of the last quarter of the century certain qualities were 
seen which were new chiefly in that they were much 
more strongly manifested than before. First, there 
was more interest in man simply because he was man, 
and not because he was rich or of noble birth. The 
revolution in America and the early part of the revo- 
lution in France emphasized the idea that every one, 
no matter of how lowly a position, possessed rights. 
Second, there was a genuine love of real nature, not 
nature made into clipped hedges and gravelled walks. 
Third, there was a certain impatience of restraint, an 
unwillingness to accept the conclusions of others. Sub- 
jects were chosen that were of personal interest to 
the author and were therefore treated with warmth of 
feeling. 

115. Thomas Gray, 1716-1771. These qualities were 
the marks of what is known as the romantic revival, a 
revolt against the artificial formality of Pope and his 
followers. Even while Pope was alive and at the height 
of his fame, poets in both Scotland and England began 
to manifest a sincere love for nature and to break away 
from the rhymed couplet. In 175 1, seven years after 
the death of Pope, a notable poem was produced by 
Thomas Gray, a quiet, sensitive scholar who spent more 
than half his life in Cambridge. Here he wrote his 
famous Elegy in a Coimtry Omrchyard. For 
Elegy. eight years he kept the Elegy by him, adding, 

^''^^' taking away, polishing, and refining, until it 

had become worthy, even in form, to be named among 
the great poems of the world. Its fame, however, is due 
less to its polish than, first, to its genuine interest in the 
lives of the poor, to its sympathy with their pleasures 
and realization of their hardships ; and, second, to its 
observation of the little things of nature, the " moping 



I76SJ THE CENTURY OF PROSE 187 

owl," the "droning flight" of the beetle, "the swallow 
twittering from the straw-built shed." Nature, accord- 
ing to the school of Pope, was rude and perhaps a little 
vulgar until smoothed and trimmed and made into lawns 
and gardens. Pope might have brought a swan or a 
peacock into a poem, but he would hardly have thought 
it fitting to introduce beetles or swallows, save the swal- 
lows tliat "roost in Nilus' dusty urn." Neither would 
Pope have thought a ploughman who " homeward plods 
his weary way" a proper subject for poetry. To Pope 
a ploughman was simply a part of the world's machinery, 
and he would no more have written about him than about 
a bolt or a screw. All Gray's poems can be contained 
in one thin volume, but their significance, especially that 
of the Elegy, can hardly be overestimated. 

116. Percy's Reliques, 1765. Interest in roman- 
ticism was greatly strengthened by the appearance in 
1765 of a book called The Rcliqiies of Ancient English 
Poetry, but better known as "Percy's Reliqnes.'' This 
was a collection of old ballads made by Bishop Percy. 
Unfortunately he felt that in their original form they 
were too rude to be presented to the literary world ; 
and therefore he smoothed and polished them to some 
extent, substituting lines of his own for such as were 
missing or such as appeared to him unworthy. The 
timid editor was astounded to find that these old ballads 
received a hearty welcome, and that their very sim- 
plicity and rude directness were their great charm to 
people who were tired of couplets and criticism. 

117. William Cowper, 1731-1800. Thus the Elegy, 
the Reliques, and even Goldsmith's Deserted Village, 
written in couplets as it was, helped on the new roman- 
ticism. So did the work of William Cowper, who began 
to write soon after the death of Goldsmith, and who 



I88 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1785 

resembled Goldsmith in love of nature and in writing 
straight from the heart. As a boy Cowper was the 
shyest of children, and it is no wonder that the timid 
little fellow suffered agonies when at the age of six he 
was sent to boarding school. From time to time through- 
out his life his mind was unbalanced, often because the 
gentle, conscientious man feared that his sins were un- 
pardonable. His later years were spent in the quiet vil- 
lages of Weston and Olney; and he sent to his friends 
most charming letters about his pets, his garden, his 
long walks about the country, and the merry thoughts 
and witty fancies that were continually coming into his 
mind. Every one knew him and every one loved him. 
He was as happy as was possible to him. Here it was 
that he wrote. Many of his hymns, such as God moves 
tn a mysterious ivay, and Oh ! for a closer walk with 
God, are familiar ; but equally well known are The 
Diverting History of JoJin Gilpin with its rollicking fun, 
and The Task. " What shall I write on } " the poet 
once asked his friend Lady Austen. " The sofa," she 
The Task, replied jestingly. He obeyed, and named his 
1785. poem The Task. He wrote first and with mock 

dignity about the evolution of the sofa. Then he slipped 
away from parlors and cities and wrote of the country 
that he loved. 

God made the country, and man made the town, 

he said. Here he is at his best. Every season was dear 
to him. He writes of winter : — 

I love thee, all unlovely as thou seemest, 
And dreaded as thou art. 

He sympathizes with the horses dragging a heavy wagon 
in the storm ; he notes the robin, — 



1775J THE CENTURY OF PROSE 189 

Flitting liglit 
From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes 
From many a twig the pendant drops of ice 
That tinkle in the withered leaves below. 

He says indignantly: — 

I would not enter on my list of friends 

(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, 

Yet wanting sensibility) the man 

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 

All this was quite different from the earlier poetry of the 
century. Pope's influence had not disappeared by any 
means, and Cowper could write such balanced lines as — 

Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much ; 
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more : 

but this frank love of nature and simple things was not 
in the least like Pope ; and there was more and even 
better poetry of this sort to be done before the close of 
the century by a Scotchman named Robert Burns. 

118. Robert Burns, 1759-1796. Burns was the son 
of an intelligent, religious farmer. His years of school 
were few, but he was by no means an ignorant man, for 
he had a shelf of good books, and he had long evenings of 
conversation with his father, a man of no common mould. 
Another thing was of the utmost value to him who was 
to become the poet of Scotland, and that was his mother's 
familiarity with the ballads and songs of the olden time, 
and the fairy tales and legends with which the mind of one 
Betty Davidson, a member of the family, was stocked. 

When Burns was sixteen, he met a pretty girl, and 
wrote a poem to her, Handsome Nell. This surns's 
was the beginning, and from that time until **rstpoem, 
he was twenty-eight, his life was full of song- Neii. 1776. 
writing, of hard work, and of the rather wild merry- 
making of one or two clubs. He had no model for his 



IQO ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1786 

poetry except the poems of Allan Ramsay, who wrote 
in the early part of the century, and Robert Fergus- 
son, who wrote about the middle. When Burns dis- 
covered Fergusson's work, he was delighted, for here 
was a poet who wrote in Scotch, who loved nature, who 
had a turn for satire keen and kindly, and a touch of 
humor. Burns felt that he had found a master, and for 
some time he meekly followed Fergusson's ways of writ- 
ing and imitated his metres without apparently the least 
idea that he himself was far greater than his predecessor. 
When Burns was twenty-five, his father died. He 
and his brother tried hard to make some profit from the 
farm, but it seemed hopeless. Robert's own wildness 
had brought him into difficulties, and he determined to 
go to Jamaica, One thing must be had first, and that 
was the money for his outfit and his passage. Some of 
his friends suggested that printing the poems which he 
Burns's ^^^ written might help to fill his empty purse, 
first vol- In 1786 the little volume was published, and 
ume. 1786. ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^.^j^ ^-^^^ j^j^ twenty guineas. He 

bought his outfit, paid his passage, and wrote what he 
supposed was the last song he should ever compose in 
Scotland. The vessel was not quite ready to sail, and 
while he waited, a letter came which suggested that it 
might be worth while to publish an edition of his poems 
yigitto in Edinburgh. For the glory and gain of such 
Edinijurgh. a possibility, the poet set out for Edinburgh 
and the ship sailed without him. He had no letters of 
introduction to the great folk of the capital city, but none 
were needed, for his poems had gone before him ; and he, 
the young peasant fresh from his unsuccessful farming, 
found himself the social and literary lion of the day. The 
new edition of his poems came out, and he was feted and 
flattered until many a brain would have turned. 



1786-1788] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 



191 



The farmer poet, however, was perfectly self-possessed. 
He was not in the least overpowered by the attention 
shown him. His only mistake was in not re- nisappoint- 
alizing that the people who praised him so ment. 
heartily would forget all about him in a month. He 
hoped that some of those men of rank and wealth who 
claimed to be his friends 
and admirers would help 
to secure for him some 
position in which he 
could have part of his 
time free for poetry. He 
was disappointed, for 
nothing came of his visit 
but a little money, a lit- 
tle fame, and the rest- 
less, unhappy feeling that 
there was a world of in- 
tellect, of cultivation, of 
association with the 
most brilliant men of his 
country, and that he was 
shut out from this by nothing but the want of money. 
He was not strong enough to put the thought away from 
him. He had one more winter in Edinburgh ; but while 
there was quite as much admiration of his poems, the 
novelty was gone, and the lovers of novelty were not so 
attentive. Burns made no complaint. He secured a 
position as an excise man, rented a little farm, married 
Jean Armour, and set out to live on his small income. 
Scotland's poet was disciplining smugglers, working on 
a farm, and incidentally writing such poems as Tarn 
O ShanteVy Bannockbiirn, and The Banks o Doon. 

The farm was not a success, and he moved to a tiny 




[759-1796 



192 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1788-1796 

house in Dumfries. The years were hard. Burns's 
readiness to please and be pleased led him into what- 
ever company chose him, not the company which he 
should have chosen. He wrote to a friend that he was 
" making ballads, and then drinking and singing them." 
He was keenly sensitive to right and wrong, but lacked 
the power to choose the right and refuse the wrong. 
The end came very soon, for he was only thirty-seven 
when he died. 

119. Burns's most notable work. The songs of 
Burns have been sung wherever English is spoken. 
They are so simple and sincere that they go straight to 
the heart, so musical that they almost make their own 
songsof melody. Songs of such intense feeling as 
Bums. " My luve is like a red, red rose," of such ten- 

derness as " O wert thou in the cauld blast " cannot go 
out of fashion. Burns's tenderness is not for human 
beings alone, but for the tiny field mouse whose " wee 
bit housie " has been torn up by the plough, and whora 
he comforts, — 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,* 
In proving foresight may be vain: 
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men 

Gang aft a-gley.^ 

Closely allied to his tenderness is his charity, a charity 
which is often delightfully combined with humor, as in 
his Address to the Deil, which closes, — 

But fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben ! ' 
O wad ye tak a thought an' men' ! 
Ye aiblins* might — I dinna ken — 
Still hae a stake.^ 

* not alone. ^ go oft amiss. ' A nickflame of Satan. 

* perhaps. ' chance. 



ter's Satur 
day Night. 



1785-1790] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 193 

Two of Burns's longer poems of contrasting character 
are, next to his songs, his most famous works, — Tarn 
d Sha7iter and The Cotter s Saturday Night. ^^^ 
The first is one of the most fascinating poems o'Shanter. 
ever written. The good-for-nothing Tam, the ^ 
long-suffering, scolding wife, the night at the inn where 
"ay the ale was growing better," the furious storm, 
Tam's setting out for home " fou and unco happy," but 
with prudent glances over his shoulder " lest bogles 
catch him unawares," — these are all put before us, 
sometimes with a touch of humor, sometimes with up- 
roarious fun ; but always fascinating, always impossible 
to read without a smile. 

The second poem. The Cotters Saturday TheCot- 
Night, is a picture of the poet's own child 
hood home on Saturday evening when — 

The elder bairns come drapping in, 
At service out, amang the farmers roun'. 

Everything is simple and homely. 

The mother, wi' her needle an' her sheers, 

Gars ' auld claes ^ look amaist as weel 's the new : 
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 

We can almost hear the knock of the bashful " neebor 
lad " who has come to call on the oldest daughter. We 
see them all sitting down to the porridge that forms 
their supper. We watch the gray-haired father as he 
takes the Bible, — 

And " Let us worship God ! " he says with solemn air. 

A Scotchman asked to read in public said, " Do not ask 

me to give The Cotter s Saturday Night. A man should 

read that on his knees as he would read his Bible." 

' makes. ' clothes. 



194 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [i8th Cent. 

Love of his childhood's home, love of country, love of 
the right were in Burns's heart when he wrote — 

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad. 

Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 
" An honest man 's the noblest work of God." 

The eighteenth century began and ended with poetry, 
but it produced no poet of the first rank. It was the 
age of prose, and it is famous for essayists, novelists, 
writers on ethics and politics, and historians — a proud 
record for one short century. 



Century XVIII 

THE CENTURY OF PROSE 

Early prose writers : Artificial poet: 

Joseph Addison. Alexander Pope. 

Richard Steele. 

Jonathan Swift. Writers on ethics and politics? 

Samuel Johnson. 
Forerunner of the novelists; Edmund Burke. 

Daniel Defoe. 

Historians : 
Novelists: William Robertson. 

Samuel Richardson. David Hume. 

Henry Fielding. Edward Gibbon. 

Tobias Smollett. 

Laurence Sterne. Romantic poets : 

Oliver Goldsmith (romantic Thomas Gray, 

poet). Oliver Goldsmith. 

Robert Burns. 

SUMMARY 

Coffee houses became important factors in literature. 
Pope was the greatest poet of the first half of the century. 
His influence for correctness, conciseness, and clearness has 



iSthCent] THE CENTURY OF PROSE 195 

never ceased to affect literature. Even his metre, the heroic 
couplet, prevailed for many years. 

The best prose writers of the early part of the century 
were : — 

1. Addison, who won political success by a couplet. 

2. Steele, who founded the Tatler, These two men wrote 
the best parts of the Tatler^ the Spectator, famous for the Sir 
Roger de Coverley papers, and the Guardian ; and this was the 
beginning of periodical literature. 

3. Swift, the many-sided, was famous for his bitter satire, 
and the warmth of his friendship. His best known book is 
Gulliver^s Travels. 

Defoe, too, was a many-sided man. His satire was written 
with such apparent sincerity that it was more than once taken 
in earnest. His best work is Robinson Crusoe. 

The Age of Queen Anne as a whole was marked by the 
development of literary criticism, by the excellence of its 
prose, and by the beginning of the periodical. 

In 1740 prose discovered a new field, the novel. The first, 
Pamela, was written by Richardson. This was followed 
by Fielding's jfoseph Andrews, Smollett^ s Roderick Random, 
Sterne's Tristram Shandy, and many others. 

Between 1750 and 1780 the chief place of honor was held 
by a man of powerful intellect, Johnson, who wrote Lives oj 
the Poets and many other works, compiled a dictionary, put 
an end to " patronage " in literature, was famous for his con- 
versational ability, and was the literary oracle of his day. 
His life was written by his admirer Boswell. 

One of Johnson's special friends was Oliver Goldsmith, to 
whom the writing of children's books, history, novels, poetry, 
and plays was equally easy and the results almost equally 
excellent. 

The period was also marked by the eloquence of Edmund 
Burke, and by the work of three historians : Robertson, who 
wrote of Scotland, Germany, and America ; Hume, who wrote 
of England ; and Gibbon, who wrote of the Roman Em- 
pire. 



196 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [i 8th Cent 

The " romantic revival," a revolt against the artificial for- 
mality of Pope, was increasing in power. It was marked by 
three qualities : interest in man as man, love of nature, inde- 
pendence of thought. This revolt was apparent in Gray's 
Elegy and in Goldsmith's poems, was strengthened by the 
appearance of Percy's Reliques, and waS carried on by the 
works of Cowper ; but its best manifestation was in the writ- 
ings of Burns, who is famous for poems of such contrasting 
character as his songs, Tarn CShanter, and The Cotter's Sat- 
urday Night. 

The eighteenth century is famous for poets, essayists, nov- 
elists, writers on ethics and politics, and historians. 



CHAPTER VIII 



CENTURY XrX 

THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 

120. The " Lake Poets." The three quahties that 
were so clearly manifested in the poetry of Burns, 
namely, interest in man, love of nature, and impatience 
of restraint, become even 
more apparent in the writ- 
ings of the nineteenth 
century. Individuality in- 
creased. It is less easy to 
label writers as belonging 
to a certain " school." 
The three poets of the 
first of the century who j 

are usually classed together i < 

as the " Lake School " have 
little in common except 
their friendship and the 
fact that they lived in the 
Lake Country. These 

three were William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Cole- 
ridge, and Robert Southey. 

When Wordsworth was twenty-one he went to France 
to study. Those were the Revolutionary days ; and the 
young student sided wit^ the Girondists so vig- wiiuam 
orously that he would surely have fallen into ^"Jfjf' 
political trouble if his friends had not stopped 1770-1850. 
his allowance in order to compel him to return. When 




WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 

1770-1850 



198 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1791-1798 

the Revolution became only a wild orgy of slaughter, he 
was disappointed and doubtful of everything ; but his 
beloved sister Dorothy came to live with him, and, as 
he said, gave him an exquisite regard for common things 
and preserved the poet in him. 

After three or four years of quiet country life, a bril- 
liant, sympathetic man became a visitor at the Words- 
samuei worth cottage. This was Coleridge. He was 
coSidge. ^ ^^^ ^h° ^^s interested in everything by 
1772-1834. turns. His brain was full of visions and 
schemes. He was in the army for a while. He planned 
to found a model republic on the Susquehanna. He 
was a wonderful talker on politics, philosophy, theology, 
poetry — whatever came uppermost. Together he and 
Wordsworth discussed what ideal poetry should be. 
Wordsworth believed that a poet should write on every- 
day subjects in everyday language. Coleridge believed 
that lofty or supernatural subjects might be so treated 
as to seem simple and real. 

121. Lyrical Ballads, 1798. The two men agreed 
to bring out a little book, Lyrical Ballads, and go to 
Germany with its proceeds ; and this was done. Cole- 
ridge's chief contribution to the volume was The Rime of 
The Rime the Ancient Mariner, that weird and marvellous 
°* *^® tale of the suffering that must follow an act not 

Ancient ^ 

Mariner. in loving accord with nature. This poem is 
like the old ballads in its simplicity and directness, but 
very unlike them in the fulness of its harmony. Cole- 
ridge was a master of sound. Here is his sound picture 
of a brook : — 

A noise like of a hidd#n brook 
In the leafy month of June, 
That to the sleeping woods all night 
Singeth a quiet tune. 



1798] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 199 

The breaking up of the ice is thus described : — 

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, 
Like noises in a swound. 

The similes of the poem are of the kind that not only 
adorn a statement but illuminate it ; the mariner passes, 
" like night," from land to land. The vessel in a calm is 

As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean. 

Wordsworth's contributions to the book were many, 
and of widely differing value. When he remembered 
his theories, he was capable of such stuff as — 

But yet I guess that now and then 
With Betty all was not so well ; 
And to the road she turns her ears. 
And thence full many a sound she hears, 
Which she to Susan will not tell. 

Here, too, was his We are Seven. The treatment is 
quite as simple as in the preceding poem ; but while the 
first seems like the awkward attempt of a man ^eare 
to be childlike, the simplicity of the second is Seven, 
appropriate because the poem is a conversation with a 
child. In this same volume was the beautiful Tintem 
Tint em Abbey, wherein all theories were for- Abbey, 
gotten. It is hardly colloquial language when the author 
says, — 

The sounding cataract 
Haunted me like a passion; 

or when he bids — 

Therefore let the moon 
Shine on thee in thy solitary walks ; 
And let the misty mountain-wind be free 
To blow against thee. 

122. Robert Southey, 1774-1843. After their visit 
to Germany, both poets settled in the Lake Country. 



200 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1797-1813 

Near them was the home of the poet Southey, who had 
been one of Coleridge's converts to the Susquehanna 
scheme. 

These were the three who were best known as poets 
when the nineteenth century began. Southey wrote 
The Curse weird, strange epics : The Curse of KeJiama, a 
of Kehama. Hindoo tale, and Thalaba, the story of a young 
Thaiaba. Arabian who sets out to avenge his father. 
1801. Southey was always attracted by the strange 

and distant ; and yet he took delight in the simplest 
things, and made the best of whatever came. In 18 13 
he was chosen Laureate ; but only a few years later he 
discovered that the pubhc did not care for more poetry 
from him, and he said with the utmost composure, " I 
have done enough to be remembered among poets, though 
my proper place will be among the historians, if I live to 
complete the works upon yonder shelves." For twenty 
years longer Southey worked industriously on prose. He 
LifeoiNei- wrote histories and biographies, an excellent 
son. 1813. life of Nelson among the latter. Here was his 
true field, for his prose is charmingly clear and sturdy ; 
and while making no apparent attempt at formal descrip- 
tion, he nevertheless contrives to leave a strongly out- 
lined picture in the mind of the reader. 

123. Coleridge's best work, Coleridge's best poetry 
was written about the time of the publication of Lyrical 
christaDei. Ballads. It was then that he composed Chris- 
1797-1800. tabel, the mystic tale of the innocent maiden 
who is enthralled by the power of magic. Then, too, he 
wrote the dazzling fragment, Kubla Khan, part 

KuWa ° °. 1 M 1 

Khan. of a poem which, he said, came to him while he 

^''^'^' slept. The rest of it was driven from his mem- 

ory by an interruption. Whatever Coleridge touched 
with his poetic gift was rich and splendid ; but nearly 



1797-1834] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 20I 

everything was incomplete. So it was in prose. No 
one can read a single page of his writings without real- 
izing that their author was a man of deep and original 
thought and of rarely equalled ability ; and yet incom- 
here, too, all was unfinished. Coleridge said Pieteness. 
that he trembled at the thought of the question, " I gave 
thee so many talents ; what hast thou done with them ? " 




SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 

1772-1834 

His excuse was a certain weakness of the will. This was 
increased by the use of opium, which he began to take 
to quiet pain, and which was for many years his tyrant. 
This great man, who influenced every one that heard 
him speak or that read his written words, was utterly 
without ability to command his own powers, to govern 
his own mind. He has left little save fragments, — but 
they are magnificent fragments. 



202 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1802-1830 

124. "Wordsworth's life. Wordsworth's life was 
quite unlike that of Coleridge. ^ He married in 1802, 
and, as he said, was " conscious of blessedness " in his 
marriage. A sum of money which had been due to his 
father was at last paid to him, and he lived on happily 
and tranquilly in his beloved Lake Country, making 
many trips abroad or to different parts of the British 
Isles. He was a keen lover of beauty, but the beauty of 
nature rather than that of art. He fell asleep before the 
Venus de Medici, but he wrote one of his best sonnets 
on the beach at Calais. His finest poems were written 
during the early years of the century. 

Appreciation was slow in finding Wordsworth, partly 
because first Scott and then Byron were coming before 
the public, and there was nothing in Wordsworth's writ- 
siow appro- ings to arouse the wild enthusiasm with which 
Words-"* people welcomed their productions. Another 
worth. reason was that Wordsworth's utter lack of 
humor permitted him in pursuit of his theories to put 
absurd doggerel into poems that were otherwise fine. 
The critics ridiculed the doggerel and passed by what 
was really worthy. " Heed not such onset," the poet 
said to himself, and serenely continued to write. Slowly 
one after another began to see that no one else could 
describe the every-day sights of nature like Wordsworth, 
or could interpret so well the feelings that they aroused 
in one who loved them. Other poets could write of tem- 
pests and crags and precipices ; but Wordsworth alone 
could picture a " common day " and an " ordinary " 
landscape. He could do more than picture ; he could 
make the reader feel that in nature was a mysterious 
life, the thought of its Creator, half expressed and half 
revealed. Long before 1830 Scott had ceased to write 
poetry, Byron and Shelley and Keats were dead. Men 



1800-1842] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 203 

began to turn back a score of years, to see that in Words- 
worth's poems there was an excellence that odeonthe 
they had overlooked. They passed by the imbe- intimations 
cilities of Peter Bell, they read the charming X'b\\\7. 
little daffodil poem, they began to appreciate i^oe. 
the grandeur of the Ode on the Intitnations of Immor- 
tality, with its magnificent sweep of poetry : — 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight, 
To me did seem 
Apparelled in celestial light, 
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 

Little by little Wordsworth's noble office was recog- 
nized, and he was known as the faithful interpreter of na- 
ture and of God in nature. In 1842 a complete edition 
of his works was called for. On the death of Southey 
during the following year, he was made Laureate with 
the good-will of all lovers of true poetry. 

Those first thirty years of the century were glorious 
times for literature. Besides the Lake Poets, there 
were the romantic writers, Scott and Byron ; the lovers 
of beauty, Shelley and Keats ; the essayists, Charles 
Lamb and De Quincey ; the magazine critics ; and the 
realist, Jane Austen. 

125. Walter Scott, 1771-1832. The first that we 
know of Walter Scott, he was a little lame, sickly child 
who had been sent away from Edinburgh to his grand- 
father's farm in the hope that he might grow stronger. 
Fortunately for all that love a good story, this hope was 
realized, and it was not long before he was galloping 
wherever a pony could carry him and scrambling wher- 
ever the pony could not go. The two things that he 
liked best were this wild roaming over the country and 
listening to the old ballads and legends that his grand- 



204 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1799-1805 

mother recited to him by the score. When he was 

older, he was sent to school in Edinburgh. He 
Boyhood. ° 

was not the leader of his class by any means ; 

but out of school there was not a boy who would not 

gladly follow him to 
some wild, romantic 
spot to listen to his 
stories of the bor- 
der warfare. One day 
he came across a 
book half a century 
old which delighted 
his heart. It was 
Bishop Percy's Re- 
liques. This was hap- 
piness. The hungry 
schoolboy forgot his 
dinner and lay out 
under the trees read- 
ing over and over 
again of Douglas and 
Percy and Robin 
Hood and Sir Patrick 
Spens. This book 
settled the question 
of what his life-work should be, though it was some years 
before he found his place. 

After leaving the university he studied law and was 
admitted to the bar. He married, held various public 
offices, and was financially comfortable. In 1799, when 
The Eve oi ^^ ^^^ twenty -eight, he made his first appear- 
st. John. ance in literature with some translations from 
German poetry. A little later he wrote a border 
ballad, The Eve of St John. Great numbers of border 



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SIR WALTER SCOTT 

1771-1832 



i8o8-i8i2] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 205 

ballads were still remembered, though they had never 
been put into print. Scott determined to collect these, 
and somewhat in the fashion of Fuller, he roamed over 
the country, taking down every scrap of the old balladry, 
every bit of legend that he could get from any one who 
chanced to remember the ancient lore. In 1802 he pub- 
lished Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and 
in 1805, The Lay of the Last Minstrel.- Then oithescot- 
there was enthusiasm indeed. Men had wan- ^^j ^gQg. 
dered into distant lands for the new, the The Lay of 

1 .117- 1 1 *Ji8 Last 

strange, the romantic ; but the Lay revealed Minstrel, 
their own country as its home. Here was a ■'■^°^- 
poem which was song, description, dialogue, legend, su- 
perstition, chivalry, every-day life, — and all blended into 
a story told by an ideal story-teller. Scott's listeners 
were as intent as those of his schooldays had been. 
There was no more thought of courts and law books. 
The teller of stories had found his place. He planned a 
romantic novel, but laid it aside. During the next three 
years he edited various works, and in the third year he 
published Marmion. Large sums of money Marmion. 
were coming in from his poems and also from I8O8. 
the publishing business, in which he had engaged with 
some old school friends, and he was free to carry out his 
dearest wish, to buy the estate of Abbotsford and become 
one of the "landed gentry." 

126. Scott abandons poetry. In 18 12, the year of 
his removal to Abbotsford, CJiilde Harold, a brilliant 
poem in a new vein, came out, written by Lord Byron. 
The crowd had found a new idol, and Scott's next poem, 
published the following year, had much smaller sales 
than his previous works. Scott brought out another 
poem, but evidently the fickle public did not care for 
more of his poetry, and he began to think about the ro- 



206 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1814-1831 

mance which he had planned several years earlier. The 
waveriey. result of this thinking was that in 18 14 the 
1814. reading world went wild with delight over Wa- 

verley, by an unknown writer ; for Scott, no one knows 
just why, did not wish to be known as its author. Story 
after story followed, — one, two, even three, in a single 
year. " Walter Scott is the only man in the land who 
could write them," was the general belief ; but the secret 
was kept for some time. 

Scott was happy in his home. Abbotsford was the 
very hearthstone of Scotland for a joyous hospitality. 

Great folk and little folk, rich and poor, lords 
Abbotsford. , , ,. ■ -r .• ^ \i, a 

and ladies, scientific men, artists, authors, ad- 
mirers from across the sea, old school friends, relatives 
even to the twentieth degree — they were all welcomed 
to Abbotsford. Sir Walter — for George IV had made 
him a baronet — usually worked three or four hours be- 
fore breakfast, which was between nine and ten, and per- 
haps two hours afterwards ; but when noon had come, 
he was ready for any kind of amusement, provided it was 
out of doors, — a long walk or ride with his pet dogs, 
hunting or fishing, or whatever might suggest itself. 

It is a pity that this happy life should have been 
clouded; but in 1826 the publishers with whom Scott 
Failure of was connected failed. The romancer might 
publishers, easily have freed himself from all claims ; but 
instead he quietly set to work to pay with his pen the 
$650,000 that was due. Novels, histories, a nine-volume 
life of Bonaparte, editorial work, translations, were un- 
dertaken in rapid succession. Paralysis attacked him ; 
still he struggled on. In 1831 the government loaned 
him a frigate to carry him to Italy for rest and .change. 

The might 
Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes, 



1807-1832] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 207 

wrote Wordsworth ; but rest had come too late. In 1832 
he returned to Abbotsford, and there he died. "Time 
and I against any two," he had said bravely when he 
took the enormous debt upon himself. Time had failed 
him, but he had paid more than half, and the royalties 
on his books finally paid the rest. 

Scott's best work was his Scottish romances, wherein 
he aimed chiefly at telling a romantic story and laid the 
scene in the past in order to add to the roman- TheWstor- 
tic effect. In such stories as KenilwortJi, how- loai novel, 
ever, he shows himself the real inventor of the historical 
novel, that fascinating combination of old and new, of 
customs and manners that are strange practised by men 
and women with loves and hates and instincts like our 
own. His power lies, first, in his knowledge of the past, 
a knowledge so full and so ready that of whatever age 
he wrote he seemed to be in his own time ; second, in 
his imagination, his ability to invent incidents and pic- 
ture scenes ; third, in his power of humorous perception 
and characterization, especially in Scottish characters. 
There have been more profound students than $cott, 
and there have been better makers of plots ; but no 
man, either before or after him, has ever combined such 
familiarity with the past and such ability to tell a story. 

127. Lord Byron, 1788-1824. George Gordon, Lord 
Byron, whose CJiilde Harold brought Scott's narrative 
poetry to an end, was the son of a worthless profligate 
and a mother who sometimes petted him, sometimes 
abused him, and was capable of flying into storms of 
anger at a moment's warning. He was so sensitive 
about his lameness that as a tiny child he struck jjo^jgoj 
fiercely with his whip at a visitor who ventured idleness, 
to express some pity for him. When he was 
ten years of age, he became Lord Byron, and was so 



208 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1807-1818 

fond of alluding to his rank that the schoolboys called 
him "the old English baron." At nineteen he published 
English '^is first book of poems, Houj^s of Idleness. It 
Bards and ^^2iS, Only a bov's work, but the position of this 

Scotch Re- J J ' r 

viewers. boy made it conspicuous, and the Edinburgh 
1809. critics reviewed it sharply. Byron was angry, 

and two years later he blazed out with English Bards 
and Scotch Reviewers, wherein he not only attacked the 
reviewers, with his scornful couplet, — 

A man must serve his time to every trade 
Save censure — critics all are ready made, — 

but Struck fiercely at his innocent fellow authors. Words^ 
worth he pronounced an idiot, Coleridge the laureate of 
asses, Scott a maker of stale romance, and the mighty 
Jeffrey, writer of the article, he declared to be " the 
great literary anthropophagus." His own critical judg- 
ments were of small value, and he was afterwards exceed- 
ingly sorry for his foolish lines ; but evidently this boy 
was not to be suppressed even by the great folk of the 
Edinburgh Revieiv. 

Byron went abroad, and in 181 2 he produced the first 
part of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and then, he 
Child© said, " I awoke one morning and found myself 

Harold's famous." He continued to write. Scott's Lay 
Pilgrimage. -^ 

1812-1818. of the Last Minstrel and Marmion began to 

seem tame when compared with the turbulent charac- 
ters and the novel manners of the East, where most of 
Byron's scenes were laid. England and the Continent 
bowed down before this new genius. He married, but 
soon his wife left him, giving no reason for her deser- 
tion. Public sympathy was with her, and Byron became 
a wanderer, tossing back to England poems of scorn and 
satire and affection and pathos ; sometimes living simply 



1813-1824] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 209 

and quietly, sometimes sinking to the depths of dissipa- 
tion ; in his writings sometimes low and vulgar, but al- 
ways brilliant. He wrote wild, romantic tales The Bride 
in poetry, — The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, oiAbydos. 
and others ; he wrote equally wild and lurid T^e oor- 
dramas : and, last of all, Don yuan, the story ***'• i^^*- 

. . . Don Juan. 

of a vicious man and his life ; often revolting, 1819- 
but, as Scott said, containing "exquisite morsels ^®^*" 
of poetry." Byron was capable of tender sympathy 
with suffering and warm appreciation of heroism, as he 
shows in The Prisoner of Chilion; but, as a ThePris- 
general thing, there were but two subjects that chuion. 
interested him deeply, himself and nature. His 18I6. 
poems, have one and the same hero, a cynical young 
man, weary of life, scornful and melancholy. This is 
the poet's somewhat theatrical notion of himself. He 
once objected to a bust of himself on the ground that 
the expression was "not unhappy enough." There is 
nothing theatrical, however, about his love of nature 
when he writes such lines as — 

The big rain comes dancing to the earth. 
Oh, night 

And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 

Yet lovely in your strength. 

This stormy cynic could also write, and with most ex- 
quisite delicacy of touch, of a quiet summer evening : — 

It is the hush of night, and all between 

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 

Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen. 

Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights appear 

Precipitously steep; and drawing near, 

There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, 

Of flowers yet fresh with childhood ; on the ear 

Drops the light drip of the suspended oar. 

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more. 



2IO ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1792-1823 

In 1823 the Greeks were struggling to win their free- 
dom from the Turks. Byron determined to play a part 
in the war, and set out for Missolonghi. The misan- 
thropic poet suddenly became the practical commander ; 
but before he could take the field, he died of fever at the 
age of thirty-six. 

128. Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792-1822. The works 
of two poets of this time, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John 
Keats, are so strongly marked by their love of beauty 
and their ability to ■ express it as to separate them from 
the others. Shelley's whole life was a revolt against 
restraint. After five months at Oxford he wrote a pam- 
phlet against the Christian religion, and was promptly 
expelled. At nineteen he married a young girl, three 
years his junior, because he thought she was tyran- 
nized over in being required to obey the rules of her 
school. 

Shelley loved the world, and he longed to have all 
things pure and beautiful ; but he fancied that the one 
change needed to bring about this state of purity and 
beauty was to abolish the laws and the religion in which 
men believed. It is hard for ordinary mortals to under- 
stand his way of looking at matters ; but those who 
Prometheus knew him best were convinced of his honesty. 
Unbound. ProvietJieits Unbound is one of his best long 
poems. He pictures the hero as rebelling 
against the gods, indeed, but as loving man. The longer 

, works are very beautiful, but there are three 
The Cloud. ^ 

or four of his shorter poems that every one 

loves. One is The Cloud, beginning, — 

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 

From the seas and the streams ; 
I bring light shade for the leaves when laid 

In their noonday dreams. 



1819-1822] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 211 

Another favorite is his Ode to the West Wind, 0*" ^° *^« 

1 , . ™ „, , , West wind 

and yet another is 10 a Skylark : — To a sky- 

lark. 
Hail to thee, blithe spirit — 

Bird thou never wert — 
That from heaven or near it 
Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 

There is a wonderful upspringing in this poem ; it 
hardly seems to touch the ground, but to be made of 
light and music. In even so earthly a simile as his com- 
parison between the lark and a glow-worm, he lightens 
and lifts it by a single word : — 

Like a glow-worm golden 

In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 
Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view. 

Another simile which surely would never have come to 
the mind of any one but Shelley, or perhaps Donne, was, 

Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thoiight, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 

Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. 

Shelley was drowned while yachting in the Bay of 
Spezzia. The quarantine law required that his body- 
should be burned, and this was done in the presence of 
Byron and two other friends. His ashes were laid in the 
little Protestant burying-ground at Rome, not far from 
Keats, who had died only a year before. It was in grief 
for the loss of Keats that he had written his lament, 
Adonais, in which he had said of the poet, — 

Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep ! 
He hath awakened from the dream of life. 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 



[1795-1821 



A little volume of Keats's poems was with Shelley on 
the yacht and was washed up with his body. 

129. John Keats, 1795-1821. For Keats life was 
not easy, though he had nothing in him of revolt against 
the established order of things. At school he was a 
great favorite and also a great fighter. A small thing 
made him happy and a small thing made him miserable. 




At fifteen he was apprenticed to a London surgeon ; 
but long before then he had begun to dream golden 
dreams of what had been when the world was younger. 
His inspiration came from the past, from the Middle 
Ages as drawn by Spenser, and from the graceful fan- 
cies and depths of the Greek mythology. 



I8i8-i82i] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 213 

In 1 81 8, when he was twenty-three years of age, 
Keats published his Endymion. It was sav- Endymion. 
agely criticised by the Quarterly Review and ^^^^• 
Blackwood's EdinbitrgJi Magazine, but the young poet 
was not to be suppressed. He made no bitter reply, 
as Byron had done, but he quietly wrote on, and two 
years later published some of his best work. 

■' Eve of St. 

Here were TJie Eve of St. Agnes, Lamia, and Agnes, La- 
others of his longer poems, absolutely over- ™^*' 
flowing with beauty and glowing with light and color : — 

Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, 
And on her silver cross soft amethyst, 
And on her hair a glory like a saint. 

If all Keats's poems but one were to be destroyed, 
most of those who love him would choose the 
Ode to a Grecian Urn to be saved. This poem Grecian 
is silver-clear, there is not a touch of color. 
About the urn is a graceful course of youths and maid- 
ens and gods with pipes and timbrels and leafy boughs. 
The poet writes : — 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 

Are sweeter ; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on ; 
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared. 

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone ; 
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare ; 
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss. 
Though winning near the goal — - yet, do not grieve ; 
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, 

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair. 

Keats was only twenty-five when he died, in Italy, 
where he had gone in the hope of saving his life. His 
ideals were so high that he felt as if what he had done 
was nothing. " If I should die," he said, " I have left 



214 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1775-1834 

no immortal work behind me ; " but the lovers of poetry 
have thought otherwise and have ranked him among the 
first of those who have loved beauty and have created it. 

130. Charles Lamb, 1775-1834. While Keats and 
Shelley were in Italy, while Byron and Scott were at the 
height of their literary glory, while Wordsworth and 
Southey and Coleridge were revelling in the beauties of 
the Lake Country, Charles Lamb, the most charming of 
essayists, was adding and subtracting at his desk in the 
East India House, until, as he said, the wood had entered 
into his soul.- 

When Lamb was a little boy, he was sent to the Blue- 
Coat School. He longed to go on to the university, but 
his aid was needed at home. A few years later his sis- 
ter Mary, in a sudden attack of insanity, killed her mo- 
ther. The young man of twenty-one, with some literary 
ambition and a keen appetite for enjoyment, bravely laid 
aside his own wishes, reckoned up his little income of 
£120 di year, and took upon him the care of his father 
and his sister. Mary Lamb recovered, but as the years 
went on, attacks came with increasing frequency. Yet 
it was not, save for this constant dread, an unhappy life 
for either of them. There was never money enough for 
thoughtless expenditure, but there was enough for their 
Lamb's simple way of living. Their circle of friends 
friends. widened ; and what a company it was that used 
to meet in those little brown rooms ! There were 
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Leigh Hunt, De Quin- 
cey, and others without number. There was the sistei 
Mary in her gray silk gown and white muslin kerchief 
and quaintly frilled cap. Every one of that brilliant 
company respected and admired her, valued her opinion, 
and never failed of her sympathy. In the midst of them 
all was Charles Lamb, seeing nothing but good in every 



1796-1807J THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 21 5 

one of them, often pouring out the wildest fun, but al- 
ways mindful of his sister, lest too eager a discussion or 
a jest too many might lead on to an attack of insanity. 
It was when she was "ill," as he tenderly phrased it, 
that he planned to dedicate to her his little volume of 




CHARLES LAMB 

I775-1834 

poems, because, as he said, people living together " get 
a sort of indifference in the expression of kindness for 
each other." 

The best of his time and strength went to the endless 
adding and subtracting, but the evenings were often 
given to writing, so far as the friends would permit. " I 



2l6 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1797-1833 

am never C. L.," Lamb groaned half in jest and half in 
earnest, " but always C. L. and Co." Yet in the work 
done in these fragments of his life he has left us a rich 
legacy. For ten years, from 1797 to 1807, his pen at- 
The Old tempted all sorts of things. He wrote several 
Faces"" poems, among them The Old Familiar Faces, 
1798. with its depth of tender affection and longing ; 

and Hester, most graceful of all memorials. He wrote a 
story or two ; he was actually under agreement 
written . to provide six witty paragraphs a day for one 
1803. ^j ^j^^ papers ; he wrote prologues and epi- 

logues for his friends' plays, and finally he wrote a play 
of his own. It was acted ; but it was such an evident 
failure that the author himself, sitting far up in front, 
hissed it louder than any one else. 

In 1807, the Talcs from SJiakespcare came out, and 
that was a success. Mary wrote the comedies and 
Tales from Charles the tragedies, " groaning all the while," 
spewe" ^^^ sister said, " and saying he can make no- 
1807. thing of it, which he always says till he has fin- 

ished, and then he finds out he has made something of it." 

During the following year he published Specimens of 

Dramatic Poets Contemporary with SJiakespcare. Here 

he gives, as he says, " sometimes a scene, some- 
Specimens O ' J • 

of Dramatic times a song, a speech, or a passage, or a poeti- 

femp^orary cal image, as they happened to strike me," — 

^"^ and to know how they struck the mind of 

Shake- ■' 

speare. Charles Lamb is the delightful part of it, for 
no one else has ever gone so directly to the 

heart of a play as this unassuming clerk of the East In- 
dia House — and then he talks a little in a 

Essays of _ 

Ella. 1822- friendly, informal way. His crowning work is 
Essays. * the Essays of Elia, short, delightful little chats 
"^^- about whatever came into his mind. He writes 



.825-1859] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 21/ 

ibout the Blue-Coat School in the days of his boyhood, 
about WitcJics and OtJier NigJit Fears ; he muses about 
Dream C/nidren ; he complains whimsically of the De- 
cay of Beggars in the Metropolis ; he presents with a 
merry mockery of profound learning a grave Dissertation 
upojt Roast Pig ; and describes with pathetic humor the 
feelings of The Siiperannnated Man who after many 
years of faithful work is given a pension by his employ- 
ers, and is at liberty to live his own life. This was a 
page from Lamb's experience, for in 1825 his employers 
gave him a generous pension, and at last he was free. 
This is what he says of his freedom : — 

"I have indeed lived nominally fifty years, but deduct 
out of them the hours which I have lived to other peo- 

ole, and not to myself, and you will find me still 

'■ ' J • J Freedom. 

a young fellow. For that is the only true Time, 

which a man can properly call his own — that which he 
has all to himself ; the rest, though in some sense he 
may be said to live it, is other people's Time, not his. 
The remnant of my poor days, long or short, is at least 
multiplied for me threefold. My ten next years, if I 
stretch so far, will be as long as any preceding thirty, 
'T is a fair rule-of-three sum. ... I have worked task- 
work and have all the rest of the day to myself." The 
" rest of the day " was short, for after only nine years of 
freedom, the most genial, delicate, charming of humor- 
ists passed away. 

131. Thoraas De Quincey, 1785-1859. " Charming " 
is the word that best describes the essays of Charles 
Lamb, but "fascinating" ought always to be saved for 
those of Thomas De Quincey. The man himself is in- 
tensely interesting. As a boy he was a great favorite 
with the other boys because of his never-failing good- 
nature and his willingness to help them with their les- 



2l8 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1800-1821 

sons ; and with the teachers because he was such a 
brilliant scholar. When he was fifteen, he could chatter 
away in Greek as easily as in English. Two years later 
he went on a ramble to Wales, then slipped away to 
London, and came near dying of starvation. After being 
at Oxford, he visited Wordsworth. They became friends 
and were neighbors for twenty-seven years. Whoevei 
met De Quincey was delighted with him. To the Words- 
worth children he was their beloved " Kinsey," and he 
was equally dear to John Wilson, who was to become 
the great "Christopher North" oi Blackzvood's Maga- 
zine. He was always ready to join in any light chat, but 
if left to himself, he had a fashion of gliding away in 
his talk to all sorts of profound and mysterious themes 
which only he knew how to make delightful. 

During those years in the Lake Country too great 
generosity and the failures of others had lessened his 
First lit- little fortune. He had a wife and children to 
erarywork. support, and he began to write for the maga- 
zines ; he even edited a local newspaper at a salary of 
one guinea a week. In 1821 he went to London. He 
was thirty-six years old, older than Byron or Shelley 01 
Keats had been when their fame was secure ; but with 
De Quincey there had been for seventeen years an 
enemy at court in the shape of opium, which among 
other effects weakened his will so that only the pres- 
sure of necessity could drive him to action. The neces- 
sity had come. Charles Lamb was writing his essays 
for the London Magazine, and he introduced De Quin- 
cey to the editors. Not long after this introduction the 
Confessions readers of the Magazine were deeply interested 
U3h"op?^- ^y ^" article called Cojifessions of an English 
Bater.1821. Opium-Eater. It might well arouse interest, for 
it was a thrilling account of the experiences that come 



1821-1837] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 219 

from the use of opium. It sounded so honest that the 
critics were half decided that it must be a work of im- 
agination. This was the real beginning of the one hun- 
dred and fifty magazine articles written by De Quincey. 
Sorrows came upon him. His wife and two of his 




THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
1785-1859 



sons died, and he was helpless. In all practical matters 
he was the most ignorant of men. With a large ueQuin- 
draft in his pocket, he once lived for a number cey'sheip- 
of days in the cheapest lodgings he could find, 
because ne did not know that the draft, payable in 



220 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1827-1837 

twenty-one days, could be cashed at once. Now with six 
motherless children, he was more of a child than any of 
them. His oldest daughter quietly planned for him to 
have a home at Lasswade, near Edinburgh, and there he 
was loved and cared for. Caring for this gentle, erratic 
man must have been somewhat of a " worriment," for he 
was quite capable of slipping out in the evening for a 
walk, lying down under a tree or a hedge, and sleeping 
calmly all night long. His books and papers accumu- 
lated like drifts in a snowstorm, and only his daughter's 
gentle control prevented him from filling room after 
room with them, and so driving the family out of doors. 
Two of his best-known essays are The Flight of a 
Tartar Tribe and Murder Considered as One of the Fine 
The Flight Arts. The inspiration of the first seems to have 
Tribe'""^" been a few sentences in a missionary report. 
1837. From these and his own wide reading, he made 

the flight of the Tartars across Asia as vivid as any 
actual journey of his readers. The second essay is writ 
ten with a delightful air of mock gravity, and with verify- 
ing quotations from various languages. He declares his 
Murder ^^"^ belief " that any man who deals in murder. 
Considered must have very incorrect ways of thinking, and 
theme truly inaccurate principles." In a later article 
■A-rts. he carries his iest further and declares that " If 

1827 

once a man indulges himself in murder, very 
soon he comes to think little of robbing ; and from rob- 
bing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, 
and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once 
begin upon this downward path, you never know where 
you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from 
some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of 
at the time." 

So De Quincey goes on. He can be dreamy and gentle, 



/8o2-i8i7] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 221 

strikingly vivid, or whimsical, or he can give a plain, 
straightforward narrative, and in every case adapt his 
style perfectly to the mood of the hour. His published 
works fill sixteen volumes, "full of brain from beginning 
to end." 

132. The Reviews. Almost all of De Ouincey's 
work was done for some one of the magazines that were 
established in the first twenty years of the century. The 
earliest was the Edinburgh Review. It began in 1802 with 
very decided principles. One was that articles must be 
written by men of standing ; second, that they must be 
paid for : third, that reviews and criticisms „,, ^ . 

^ Edinbuigl 

should be absolutely independent. Francis J ef- Review, 
frey soon became its editor, and was its ruling ^®°^' 
spirit for a quarter of a century. This magazine was sc 
strongly Whiggish in tone that an opposition Tory maga- 
zine, the Quarterly Review, was soon founded. „ 

-^ . Quarterly 

Then came BlackzvootV s Maga:2ine, whose great Review. 

man was John Wilson, or " Christopher North." "°®" 
These periodicals were so partisan and so bent upon 
being "independent" that many authors, like Keats and 
Wordsworth, suffered most unfairly at their Black- 
hands ; but, however hard their reviews were !!°°*'^, 

'_ ' _ Magazine. 

for individual writers, they were certainly good I817. 
for literature, for the very savageness of their criticism 
aroused discussion and interest in literary matters. 

133. Jane Austen, 1775-1817. In the midst of the 
poems and romances and essays and reviews, the novel 
of home life held a little place, but an important one. 
Immediately after the days of Richardson, Fielding, and 
Smollett, there was much story-writing, but these stories 
were generally romances. The best and almost the only 
real novels of the earliest years of the nineteenth cen- 
tury were written by a young girl named Jane Austea 



7.22 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1811-1817 

who lived in a quiet village rectory. In 1 796, when she 
was twenty-one, she wrote Pride and Prejudice, and 
Pride and during the next few years several other works 
pubiS followed. She kept her authorship a secret, 
1813. and, indeed, did not publish a book until 181 1, 

three years before the coming out of Waverley. 

In some ways, these novels of the beginning of the 
century are very different from those written at its end. 
For one thing, Miss Austen often tells in long conver- 
sations what in later books is expressed by a hint. Her 
pictures give the minutest details of thought and feeling 
and action. In Emma, for instance, it requires 

Emma, . 

published several pages to make it clear that an elderly 
"^®' gentleman is afraid of a drive through the snow, 

but finally decides to attempt it. The same character in 
a later novel would glance anxiously out of the window 
and order his carriage. Miss Austen had a keen but 
most delicate sense of humor. In her own line she was 
almost as much of a realist as Defoe. She has a fashion 
of choosing several characters so nearly alike 

MlssAus- ^ , , . r 

ten's excel- that we feel sure she "can make nothing of 
lence. j^. . .. -^^^ -^^ j^^j. |^j^.g ^f description and her 

long conversations characteristics come out amazingly 
well; and suddenly we realize that she "has made some- 
thing of it," that these monotonous people who seemed 
to have been created by the dozen have become thor- 
oughly real and individual and interesting. Miss Austen 
died in 1817. The romantic poetry of Byron and what 
Scott called "the big bow-wow strain " of his own novels 
were filling the minds of readers, and it was not until 
long after her death that her work received the attention 
and admiration that it deserved. 

Occasionally in the history of literature we come to 
what seems a natural boundary. Such a boundary was 



1832] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 223 

reached in 1832. Before the close of that year, Byron, 
Shelley, Keats, and Scott were dead ; the literary work 
of Lamb and Coleridge was practically com- The year 
plete ; Wordsworth wrote little more that was of 1832. 
value ; only De Quincey and Southey were still active. 
The condition of the country was rapidly changing. In 
political history, too, 1832 was a natural boundary, for in 
that year a Reform Bill was passed, giving for the first 
time to many thousand people in England the right to 
be represented in Parliament. Education became more 
general, not only the education of schools, but that of 
books and papers. Books became cheaper, the circula- 
tion of papers increased. Cheap magazines were estab- 
lished. Scientific discoveries and inventions overthrew 
former ways of living and working and forced people to 
think, whether they would or not. The audience makes 
the author, and the author makes the audience. The 
half-century following 1832 was to see — among other 
marks of literary progress — a remarkable development 
di the novel, the essay, and the poem. 

The three novelists of the Victorian Age whose writ- 
ings are looked upon as modern classics are Charles 
Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Mary Ann 
Evans Cross, or " George Eliot." 

134. Charles Dickens, 1812-1870. The first nine 
years of Charles Dickens's life were very happy ; but 
his father's salary was cut down, and before long he was 
imprisoned for debt. The rest of the family established 
themselves in the prison, and there the little boy spent 
his Sundays. Through the week he was left to work 
all day in a cellar and spend his nights in an attic. It is 
no wonder that throughout his life he had deep sym- 
pathy for lonely children. After a while came a few 
years of prosperity, and the boy was sent to school. 



524 



ENCxLAND'S LITERATURE [1829-1850 




His father became a parliamentary reporter for one of 
the papers; and when Charles was seventeen, he set out 
to learn shorthand. He was wise enough to realize that 
a good reporter must know much more than shorthand ; 

and he read, read hard 
, , ,^^ ^ hour after hour, when- 

ever he had the hours. 
There were two 
things that the young 
man liked to do better 
than all eke. One 
was to act and the 
other was to write ; 
and one day he was 
too happy to keep the 
tears from his eyes, 
for \\\Q. Monthly Magn- 
ziiie had published a 
paper of his, known 
afterwards as Mr. 
Mijrns and his Cousin 
in Sketches by Boz. "Boz" was his little sister's pronun- 
ciation of Moses, a nickname which Charles had given to 
his brother in memory of "Moses" in The Vicar of 
Wakefield. Other sketches followed. By and by they 
came out in book form. Then a publishing firm asked 
Pickwick if he would write a series of humorous articles. 
He agreed, and this was the origin of the 
Pickwick Papers. Dickens was now twenty- 
his fame and his bank account were increasing 
rapidly. The following year he wrote Oliver 
Twist, and his other novels appeared in quick 
succession. He edited several periodicals, he 
wrote sketches of travel, and m 1850 he published 



CHARLES DICKENS 
1812-1870 



Papers. 

1836- 

1837. 

five : 



Oliver 
Twist. 
1838. 



1850] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 22^ 

David Copperfieldy the work that he loved best, and a 
book that those who love its author cannot help find- 
ing most pathetic in the pictures that it gives David cop- 
of his own younger days. For twenty years perfieid. 
longer his work went on. The public were 
more and more charmed with each story ; and well they 
might have been, for every page was sparkling with 
merriment or throbbing with a pathos that came so 
straight from the writer's own heart that it could not 
fail to move his readers. When his characters blunder, 
they blunder delightfully. When they are sad, we sym- 
pathize with them ; but when they are merry, then comes 
a full tide of rollicking fun that " doeth good like a 
medicine." 

Dickens never seemed happier than when he was 
acting in amateur theatricals. This taste is evident in 
his novels. They often lack the drama's completeness 
of plot, but many of the characters have a touch of 
"make-up" which sometimes gives the reader a sense 
of their unreality, a feeling that they are figures on a 
stage rather than real men and women. Moreover, 
Dickens almost always fixes upon some special trick of 
expression or some one prominent quality, and by it he 
labels the character. Uriah Heep is always Method of 
" 'umble," Mr. Micawber is always " waiting caricature, 
for something to turn up." This is not character draw- 
ing ; it is caricature. Nevertheless, no one who reads 
Dickens can help being grateful to the man whose work 
not only gives us amusement but is all aglow with good 
will and kindliness. 

Dickens was an intense and constant worker. " I am 
become incapable of rest," he said Not only Dicienga, 
did he do a vast amount of work, but he threw a worker, 
his whole self into every book. Little Nell was so real 



226 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1811-1848 

to her creator that after writing of her death, he walked 
the streets of London all night, feeling as if he had 
really lost a beloved child friend. Long lives do not go 
with such work as this, and Dickens died, almost at his 
desk, at the age of fifty-eight. 

135. William Makepeace Thackeray, 1811-1863. 
In 1836, when Dickens had just begun the Pickwick 
Papers, the artist who was to illustrate them died, and a 
young man offered himself as a substitute, but was not 
accepted. This was William Makepeace Thackeray, who 
was to be counted as one of the three great novelists of 
the Victorian Age. His early life was unlike that of 
Dickens, for, born in India, he was sent to England to 
be educated, and had all the advantages of school and 
university. Just what he should do with himself was 
not easy to decide ; but he had artistic ability and he 
concluded to study art. About the time when he came 
to the decision that he had not the talent to be as great 
an artist as he had hoped, his fortune was lost. Then 
he began to contribute to several magazines ; and as if 
laughing at himself for having even thought of being a 
famous artist, he signed his articles "Michael Angelo 
Titmarsh." 

Thackeray's fame was of slower growth than Dick- 
ens's. People read his Great Hoggarty Diamond in 
The Great Fraser s Magazine and his Book of Snobs in 

Hoggarty Punch ; they were amused and interested, but 
Diamond. ' ■' _ . ' 

1841. they did not lie awake nights longing for the 

of Snobs next number. Publishers did not contend wildly 

1848. for his manuscripts, and he was sometimes 

asked to shorten those that he presented. Dickens had 

an unfailing good nature and cheerfulness and a healthy 

confidence in himself almost from the first that swept 

his readers along with him. Thackeray was not so 



1847-1848] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 



227 



cheery, and he was not quite so sure of himself or of 
his audience. Again, people like to be amused. When 
Dickens made fun of his characters, he laughed at them 
with the utmost frankness, and every one laughed with 
him. When Thackeray disapproved, he wrote satiri- 
cally ; and satire is not so easy to see and not so amus- 
ing to every one as open ridicule. Dickens's pathos, 
too, was much more marked than Thackeray's. For 
these reasons Thackeray's fame grew slowly 
In 1 847- 1 848 he wrote Vanity Fair. Now 1847- 
Thackeray greatly admired Fielding, and oddly ■*•***■ 
enough, this book had somewhat the same relation to 
Dickens's novels that 
Fielding's JosepJi An- 
drezvs had to Pamela. 
Dickens always had 
heroes and heroines, 
and they were always 
good. They might be 
thrown among wicked 
people, but they were 
never led astray by bad 
company. Thackeray 
declared that Vanity 
Fair had no hero. Its 
heroine, Becky Sharp, 
is distinctly bad. Her 
badness and clever- 
ness stand out in 
bolder relief from con- 
trast with Amelia's goodness and dulness. The book is 
a satire on social life, but it is a kindly satire. Like 
Shakespeare, Thackeray has charity for every one ; and 
-even in the case of Becky, he does not fail to let us see 




WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
1S1I-1863 



228 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1820-1848 

how much circumstances have done to make her what 
she is. 

Besides novels Thackeray also wrote lectures on The 
English Humourists and on The Four Georges. He wrote 
Henry Bs- some merry burlesques, one on Ivanhoe called 
mond. Rebecca and Rowena, wherein Rowena marries 

The New- Ivanhoc but makes him wretched by her jeal- 
i8™4- ousy of Rebecca. His best novel is Henry 
1855. Esmond, a historical romance of the eighteenth 

century; but in The Newcomes is the character that 
comes nearest to every one's heart, the dear old Colonel 
who loses his fortune and is obliged to live on the char- 
ity of the Brotherhood of the Gray Friars. If Thack- 
eray had written nothing else, his picturing of the ex- 
quisite simplicity and self-respecting dignity with which 
Colonel Newcome accepts the only hfe that is open 
to him, would have been enough to prove his genius. 
This is the way he describes the Colonel's death: — 

Just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over 
his face, and he lifted up his head a httle, and quickly said "Ad- 
sum" and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names 
were called; and, lo, he whose heart was as that of a little child had 
answered to his name, and stood in the presence of his Maker. 

136. Other Novelists. Although hardly counted 
among "modern classics," the novel Jane Eyre, which 
Jane Eyre, came out in 1848, was the sensation of its di^y; 
-^*^- and when its author, "Currer Bell," was dis- 

covered to be Charlotte Bronte, the shy, retiring daughter 
of a Yorkshire clergyman, praise and admiration ran 
wild. Her book had a romantic plot, but it was reahstic 
in its treatment. Moreover, it was one of the first of 
what are called psychological novels, that is, novels in 
which the author does not, like Jane Austen, leave her 
characters to explain themselves by their conversation 



i8s3-iS59] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 229 

and acts, but discusses their motives with the reader. 
Charlotte Bronte's friend and biographer, EHzabeth 
Cleghorn Gaskell, wrote the charming Httle cranforfl. 
book Cranford, picturing with equal realism the ^^^^■ 
quaint humors and oddities and pathos of a country vil- 
lage. The works of both these writers had much influ- 
ence on "George Eliot," the third of the great novehsts 
of the time. 

137. "George Eliot," 1820-1881. Mary Ann Evans 
Cross, much better known as "George Eliot," was only 
a few years younger than Dickens and Thackeray; but 
the mass of their work was done before she wrote her 
earliest novel. Her first thirty-two years were spent in 
Shakespeare's country of Warwickshire. She was al- 
ways a student; and, although she left school at sixteen, 
she went on with French and German and music. She 
also studied Greek and Hebrew. When she was twenty- 
seven years old she translated a German work. This 
was so well done that it brought her much Transia- 
praise. She began to write essays, and in 185 1 **""• 
she left the house that had been made lonely by the 
death of her father and went to London as assistant edi- 
tor of the Westminster Review. It was six years longer 
before she attempted fiction; and even then the attempt 
was not an idea of her own. She felt very doubtful of 
her ability to succeed, and probably hesitated longer 
about sending her Scenes from Clerical Life to scenes 
Blackwood's than about forwarding her first [03^1"" 
essay to a publisher. She could hardly be- i^^y. 
lieve her own eyes when she read the admiring notices 
that appeared from all directions. There was no ques- 
tion that she was no longer to be a writer of essays, but 
of novels; and two years later Adam Bcde came out. 
Then there was not only increased admiration but a 



230 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1860-1881 

curiosity that was determined to be gratified, for no one 
knew who was the author of either book. Carlyle was 
convinced that it was a man, but Dickens was one of 
-r^ iwrni „ the first to beheve that it was a woman. Her 

The Mill on 

the Floss, next volume, The Mill on tJie Floss, tells us 

much of her hfe as a child. Not at all like 

Maggie of the Mill is the little heroine of her following 

Silas Mar- book, SHas Mamer, the story of a miser who 

ner. 1861. jg brought back to lovc and happiness by the 

tiny golden-haired child who made her way into his 

lonely cottage. 

George EHot wrote no more books about her child- 

Romoia. hood, and we never again come as near her 

i?.^2; own life as in The Mill on the Floss. She 

Mladle- 

march. wrote now a historical novel, Romola: now a 

1871-1872 

story of English hfe, Middlemarch, and other 
works. In one way her novels may be said to have the 
same theme; the chief character longs for a nobler and 
better life than he has, and at last, after many efforts, 
he finds it. He who does wrong is punished; but with 
all her exactness of justice, she never fails to make us 
see that the temptations to which one yields are real 
to him, however feeble they may be to others. "When 
I had finished it," said Mrs. Carlyle of Adam Bede, "I 
found myself in charity with the whole human race." 
George Eliot's characters grow. Scott's Ivanhoe and 
Rebecca and Rowena are exactly the same at the end 
of the book as at the beginning; but Maggie Tulliver 
and Adam and Silas are altered by years and events. 
We must admit that her later novels have less freshness 
and beauty and humor than the earlier; but the novelist 
who pictures even one phase of human life as exactly, 
as thoughtfully, and as sympathetically as George Eliot 
must ever be counted among the greatest. 



1828-1885] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 231 

138. George Meredith, 1828-1909. Fifty years 
after the "natural boundary" of 1832, Dickens, Thack- 
eray, and George Eliot were all dead. Meanwhile, other 
novehsts had been pressing forward for recognition. In 
the front ranks were George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, 
Robert Louis Stevenson, and, somewhat later, Rudyard 
Kipling. 

George Meredith's first novel, The Ordeal of Richard 
Feverel, appeared in 1859, the year in which George 
Eliot's Adam Bedc was published, and is often ordeaioi 
called his greatest book. Richard's father Je^^^^f 
keeps a sort of diary of aphorisms known as 1859. 
"The Pilgrim's Scrip," and with these the book is liber- 
ally sprinkled. He also has a "system" by which he 
brings up his son. The boy is kept away from other 
young people and is taught to have nothing to do with 
women. Just when his education is supposed to be near- 
ing completion, he meets "Lucy," falls in love with her, 
and straightway the "system" crumbles. There are 
strong scenes in this book and some charming descrip- 
tions of nature. Here in two sentences is a sketch from 
which an artist might work: — 

Above green-flashing plunges of a weir, and shaken by the 
thunder below, lilies, golden and white, were swaying at anchor 
among the reeds. Meadowsweet hung from the banks thick 
with weed and traiHng bramble. 

Other novels followed, among them Rhoda Fleming, Diana 
of the Crossioays, and also several volumes of poems. 

Meredith is a master of fiction, and yet his circle of ad- 
mirers has never been large. Most readers of novels like 
to feel that their author in hand is not trying to uphold 
some theory or dissect some special trait of character, but 
is aiming first of all to tell them a story in such a way as 
to interest them. Meredith gives us the feeling that he 



232 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1840-1S56 

writes purely to please himself. When he says, for in- 
stance, of a boy of fourteen or fifteen that "Beauty was 
his handmaid and History his minister, and Time his an- 
cient Harper, and sweet Romance his Bride," we are 
reasonably certain that he has not his readers in mind, 
but his own pleasure in so phrasing his thought. Some 
readers like to dig out the meaning of a sentence like this, 
but most readers do not. As with his phrasing, so with 
his humor. It is never bright and sparkling, as if inviting 
others to smile with him; but rather somewhat grim and 
satirical, as if he preferred to enjoy it alone. Meredith 
did not write easily; his novels were hterally "works." 
Neither do his characters do anything easily. They are 
all struggHng, and it seems impossible for them to under- 
stand one another. 

Why is it, then, that Meredith came to be looked upon 
as at the head of the profession of letters in England? 
Why is it that those who have any liking for his books ad- 
mire them so intensely? It is because his mind was so 
powerful, his imaginat'on so strong and inventive, be- 
cause he had so wide a view of life and so keen an insight 
into people's thoughts and motives. The charm is not 
in his characters, but rather in finding what a man of such 
quality has to say about them. As one of our frankest 
critics has said, "To adopt a phrase that Arnold applied 
to Emerson, I should say that Mr. Meredith was not a 
great novelist; he was a great man who wrote novels." 

139. Thomas Hardy, 1840- . In 1856, Thomas 
Hardy, then a boy of sixteen years, was put into an office 
Early to learn to be an architect of churches. His 

^"^- parents had planned for him to become a clergy- 

man, but he preferred building churches to occupying their 
pulpits. After some thirteen years of architectural work, 
he suddenly plunged into novel writing. The first man- 



1865-1887] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 233 

uscript of the architect-author fell into the hands of 
George Meredith, who was for thirty years literary ad- 
viser to one of the large publishing houses of England. 
He was keen enough to see that, crude as it was, it showed 
genuine ability, and he advised Hardy to keep on writing. 
This was the beginning of a sincere and lifelong friend- 
ship between the two men. Hardy wrote one book after 
another. Far from the Madding Crowd won for him the 
popular ear. It came out first as a serial, and the wise 
folk were certain that George Eliot was its author. To 
be sure, it was not like her, but it was so good that they 
felt sure it must have come from her pen. 

Seven years after his first attempt at fiction, Hardy's 
Return of the Native was published, which is generally re- 
garded as his greatest work. It begins with his famous 
description of " the sombre stretch of rounds and hollows, 
the vast tract of unenclosed wild, known as Egdon 
Heath." Briar, furze, moss, dark and gloomy pools, 
pits, ridges, hillocks, crossed by the remains of an "aged 
highway," an ancient Roman road — such was the scene 
that Hardy chose for his novel, several Dorsetshire, or 
"Wessex," heaths united into one. This heath domi- 
nates the story ; the rest of the world is far away and un- 
real. Hardy even personifies his heath. As night ap- 
proaches, "The place became full of a watchful intent- 
ness, for when other things sank brooding to _ , , 

xloturn 01 

sleep, the heath appeared slowly to awake and the Native, 
listen." The characters of the story almost 
seem to be created by the various moods of this mystical 
heath. Even Clym, the "native," the successful dealer 
in precious stones, feels its uncanny attraction and will- 
ingly leaves his wider life to return to it. Eustachia, the 
one character that rebels against its power, becomes its 
victim. The Return of the Native is a strong story, finely 



234 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1887-1895 

told, for Hardy is one of the great story-tellers of our 
time. It is so rich in pictures of nature, in character- 
drawing, in plot and incident, that he who reads it over 
and over will discover new beauties at each reading. 

In 189 1 Tess of the D'Urbervillcs came out. Here 
Hardy began not only w-th a story in mind, but also with 
Tess of the ^ thesis to prove, namely, that a person may be 

D'Urber- driven by circumstances to commit crimes, and 
vines. ^ , ' . 

1891. yet may be pure and innocent at heart. In his 

book he succeeds only in so far as he shows to his readers 

that he himself thinks Tess blameless She is certainly 

lovable and appealing. In the midst of her own distress 

she feels keenly for the birds wounded by hunters and left 

to suffer until death relieves them. Of this the author 

says : — 

She had occasionally caught glimpses of these men in girlhood, 
looking over hedges or peering through bushes, and pointing 
their guns, strangely accoutred, a bloodthirsty light in their 
eyes. She had been told that, rough and brutal as they seemed 
just then, they were not like this all the year round, but were, 
in fact, quite civil persons, save during certain weeks of autumn 
and winter, when, like the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, 
they ran amuck, and made it their purpose to destroy life — in 
this case harmless feathered creatures. 

There are racy bits of humor in this book. " Sir John " 
is a delight from the moment of his being told of his de- 
scent — degenerate though it is — from an ancient fam- 
ily of rank, to the time when he announces as follows his 
"rational scheme" for living: — 

" I 'm thinking of sending round to all the old antiquarians in this 
part of England, asking them to subscribe to a fund to maintain 
me. I'm sure they'd see it as a romantical, artistical, and proper 
thing to do. They spend lots o' money in keeping up old ruins, and 
finding the bones o' things, and such like; and living remains must 
be more interesting to 'em still, if they only know'd o' me." 



1895-1909] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 



235 



Unfortunately the desire to prove a thesis by a novel 
grew upon Hardy, and when Jude the Obscure came out, 
in 180 15, it did not meet the friendly reception 

. , „,, , . , Jude the 

given to its predecessors. Whether in wrath or obscure, 
sensitiveness, or in hopelessness of converting ^^^^' 
the world to his theories, is not known, but Hardy wrote 
no more novels. He devoted himself to poetry and the 
poetic drama, doing work which is meritorious to be sure, 
but by no means ecjual to the fiction that he might have 
given us. 

140. Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894. Treasure 
Novelists were becoming more and more in- laaa.' 
clined to analyze their characters and philoso- 
phize about them. It was beginning to seem as if telling 
a story just because it 
was a good story to 
tell had become one 
of the lost arts when, 
in 1883, a little book 
called Treasure Is- 
land slipped intoprint, 
the tale of a search for 
a pirate's hidden gold. 
The author did not 
philosophize abouthis 
characters, but, what 
was far better, he un- 
derstood them, and he 
pictured them as if he 
had known them all 
his life. This book 




Photograph by Brown Brothers, Neu 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



was a real story, and 

if a boy had not the leisure to read it through, from the 

flight of Jim and his mother to " Pieces of eight! " on the 



236 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1S83-1S86 

last page, or else the resolution to drop it at bedtime or 
schooltime or any other unpardonable interference, it was 
better for him not to begin it. The story is full of thrills 
from beginning to end and the style is delightful in its 
grace and artistic finish. There is never a careless sen- 
tence, never a worn-out phrase or a misplaced word, and 
the chapters sound as if they had "written themselves." 
The critics ought to have realized that a new star had 
appeared, but the little book had to wait a while for their 
general appreciation. The author was a young Scotchman 
named Robert Louis Stevenson. He had set out to be- 
come a civil engineer, like his father, but he finally 
studied law and was admitted to the bar. 

Meanwhile he had, as he said, "become a good friend 
to the paper-makers," and had written An Inland Voyage, 
Essays and Travels with a Donkey, and some charming es- 
Sketches. gg^yg ^j- sketches afterwards collected in book 
form and called Virginibus Puerisque and Familiar Stud- 
ies of Men and Books. Here are fascinating bits of de- 
scription, such as: — 

The river was in such a hurry for the sea! Every drop of water 
ran in a panic, Hke as many people in a frightened crowd. And 
what crowd was ever so numerous, or so singleminded? 

Here are sage and interesting reflections on life, such as: — 

How little we pay our way in life! Although we have our purses 
continually in our hand, the better part of service goes still un- 
rewarded. But I like to fancy that a grateful spirit gives as good 
as it gets. 

So the days passed. Stevenson was doing line work, 
Dr. Jekyii but it was not until 1886, when he was thirty- 
flTdf '" ^^^ years old, that, with the publication of The 
1886. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, real 

fame came to him. His life from his early boyhood had 



1886-1894] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 237 

been a struggle for health. The climate of his native 
Scotland he could not endure, and after trying one place 
after another, he finally made a home for himself and 
family on the island of Samoa, in the Pacific Ocean. Here 
he died, in 1894, and was buried on the summit of a moun- 
tain which overlooks his beloved Vailima. 

In Stevenson himself there is a rare lovableness. His 
letters glow with affection for his friends and friendhness 
toward the whole world. They are fairly bubbling with 
fun and no one would guess that much of his winsome 
work was done on a bed of sickness. On his unfinished 
novel. The Weir of Hermiston, generally considered his 
best work, he wrote hard on the last day that he lived. 
He insisted upon enjoying his life and being cheerful in 
spite of suffering. In his Child's Garden of Verse he put a 
couplet which expresses in his own whimsical fashion his 
lifelong creed, 

The world is so full of a number of things, 
I 'm sure we should all be as happy as kings. 

141. Rudyard Kipling, 1865- . KipHng is one of 
those writers who have done too many kinds of work to 
be labelled and thrust into a single pigeonhole. 
He was born at Bombay, in Hindustan, the son mental 
of a professor of architectural sculpture, and of isse.^" 
course learned the language and customs of the from^the^^^ 
country with less effort than children usually Hiiis. 
learn to walk. His schooldays were spent in 
England, and then he returned to India and took a posi- 
tion as reporter on one of the papers. It became the cus- 
tom in the office to call upon him to provide at short no- 
tice verses and sketches for vacant corners of the sheet. 
People liked these, and naturally he made a Httle book of 
them. Then he made another and another. Depart- 
mental Ditties (1886) and Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) 



238 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 



[1 888- 1 906 



proved to the reading public of India that a hterary Hght 
had arisen among them. Six more volumes he pubhshed 

in 1888, and in the fol- 
lowing year; and after 
some difhculty he per- 
suaded an English 
publisher to bring out 
his Plain Tales from 
the Hills. Never again 
did he have to go 
forth in search of a 
pubhsher, for the book 
was successful in Eng- 
land. India was al- 
most an unworked 
field in story-writing, 
to be sure, but it was 
far less this fact which 
won the eager admi- 
ration of Kipling's 
readers than his originality, his keen sense of humor, and 
his forceful and vigorous treatment. 

Kipling has produced a vast amount of work — novels, 
short stories, stories for children, stories about children, 
Kim. 1901. and poems. Of his novels, Kim is less a num- 
ttfatrSfed. ^^^ ^^ scenes skilfully blended into one book 
1906. than it is a story which can be split up into a 

number of scenes, but it is a brilliant and vigorous piece 
of work. The Light that Failed is thrilling as a story, but 
even more so in its terribly vivid picture of the sudden 
blindness that came upon an artist when at the height of 
his success. Kipling can draw a character with great 
power; the heroes of his Soldiers Three, for example, are 
real living men; but a novel demands that its characters 




Pliotograyjli by Brown Brothers, A'e 
RUDYARD KIPLING 



1906-1921] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 239 

shall grow, shall be changed by years and events. Few 
of his characters do this, though Harvey, in Captains 
Courageous, is so thoroughly aroused by finding himself 
good for something that he becomes almost another 
boy. 

Kipling's short stories especially are marked by their 
Hfe and vigor. The old definition of a verb, "a word 
which expresses being, action, or state," would be rather 
too broad for him, since he has small use for verbs that do 
not express action. He can write a good ghost story, but 
he can also make a tale without a ghost fully as frightful, 
for instance, The Man Who Would he King; though The 
Man Who Was is even more appalling in that it pictures 
the result of mental as well as physical torture. 

This writer who could reproduce the roughness of a 
drinking scene had most tender sympathy with little 
children and a perfect understanding of their short 
point of view. Wee Willie Winkie is an inimita- stories, 
ble portrayal of the exquisite chivalry of a tiny boy who 
was also a gentleman; and Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, is most 
touching in its comprehension of the silent suffering of 
the boy who found all his little world suddenly turned 
against him. The Jungle Books open the gate into a new 
world, and the child who has not read them has lost a 
great dehght. 

When Kipling takes his pen in hand for a poem, it 
"may perchance turn out a sang, perchance turn out a 
sermon." If it is a " sang," it will be certain to 

Verse. 

have, like Mandalay, a vigorous swing of metre 
that will make it "sing itself." If it is a sermon, it will, 
at its best, be the noble inspiration of the Recessional, or 
such an utterance as L'Envoi, the heart-warming poem 
of every worker who is great enough to love his work. 
Kipling is capable of such a delicate piece of dream work 



240 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 



[1S00-1S08 



as The Brushwood Boy, but take him all in all, he is the 
poet and story-teller of the man who acts rather than the 
man who dreams. 

142. Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1800-1859. 
The most prominent essayists between 1832 and 1900 were 

Macaulay, Carjlyle, 
Ruskin, and Arnold. 
Thomas Babington 
Macaulay must have 
been as interesting 
when a small boy as 
he was when a man. 
He was hardly more 
than a baby when he 
read anything and 
everything, and his 
memory was so amaz- 
ing that he could re- 
peat verbatim what- 
ever he had read. He 
was the busiest of 
children; for before he 
was eight, he had 
written an epitome of general history, and an essay on 
the Christian religion which he hoped would con- 
vert the heathen, besides epics, hymns, and 
various other poems. He was always able to talk in 
grown-up fashion. The story is told that when he was 
only four years of age, some hot tea was spilled over 
his legs. After various remedies had been applied, he 
was asked if he felt better. ''Thank you, madam," the 
little fellow replied gravely, "the agony is abated." 
The great charm of the wonderful boy was that he 
never seemed to notice that he was any brighter than 




LORD MACAULAY 
1S00-1S59 



Precocity. 



1808-1S34] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 241 

other boys. He fancied that older people knew every- 
thing, and was inclined to feel humble because he did not 
know more. He had delightful rambles with the other 
children over a great common broken by ponds and 
bushes and hillocks and gravel pits, for every one of 
which he had a name and a legend. To go away to 
school and leave all these good times and his eight 
brothers and sisters was a severe trial, and he begged 
most piteously to come home for just one day before the 
vacation. 

As he grew older, he no longer learned by heart with- 
out the least effort; but even then, a man who could 
recite the whole of Pilgrim s Progress and his 
Paradise Lost had small reason to complain of ™®™"y- 
a poor memory, and he seemed to read books by simply 
turning the pages. After taking his degree, he studied 
law, wrote a few articles for the magazines, and 

. Essay on 

in 1825, when he was just twenty-five years of Miiton. 
age, published in the Edlnhurgh Review his ^^^^' 
Essay on Milton. Before the next number of the Review 
was out, the young contributor was a famous man. He 
had done something that no one else had succeeded in 
doing; he had written in a style that was not only clear 
and strong and interesting, but was brilliant. Every 
sentence seemed to be the crystallization of a thought. 
Every sentence was so closely connected with what pre- 
ceded it that the reader could almost feel that he was 
thinking along with the writer and that his own thoughts 
were being put into words. 

Just as in Addison's day, each political party was on 
the watch for young men of literary talent, and Macaulay 

soon had an opportunity to enter Parliament. 
. , 1 ^ u • ^ In pontics. 

A few years later he was given a government 

position in India with a salary that enabled him to return 



242 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1838-1881 

within three years with means sufficient to justify him 
in devoting himself to literature. Through the years 
between the publication of his Essay on Milton and 
1849, his literary fame was on the increase. He wrote 
a most valuable work on Indian law, he wrote a number 
of essays, the famous ones on Johnson and on Warren 
Hastings among them. He wrote his spirited Lays 
Lays of of Ancient Ro?ne, and he read, read English, 
R^mr* Greek, Latin, but especially English history; 
1842. for he had planned no less a work than a his- 

tory of England from 1688 to the French Revolution. 
In 1848 his first volume came out, and then Macaulay 
learned what popularity meant. Novels were forgotten. 
History of for evcry one was reading the History of Eng- 
1848^* land. Edition after edition was issued. Within 
I860.' ^ fg-y^ weeks after its publication in England, 

six different editions were published in the United 
States, and one firm alone sold 40,000 copies. As other 
volumes followed, the sales became even greater. In 
1856, his publishers gave him a check for £20,000, "part 
of what will be due me in December," he wrote in his 
journal. Brilliant as the work is, it is severely criticised, 
for Macaulay was too intense in his feelings and too 
"cock-sure of everything," as was said of him, to be 
impartial; but it is a wonderful succession of the most 
vivid pictures and is as interesting as a romance. Honors 
came to him thick and fast, and soon the queen raised 
him to the peerage. He worked away industriously, 
hoping to complete his history; but before the fifth 
volume had come to its end he died, sitting at his library 
table before an open book. 

143. Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881. Never were four 
writers more unlike than our four essayists; and the 
second, Thomas Carlyle, was unlike everybody else; he 



1809-1834] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 243 

was in a class by himself. His father was a Scotchman, 
a sensible, self-respecting stone mason who had high 
hopes for his eldest son. When the boy had entered the 
University of Edinburgh, the way seemed to lie open for 
him to become a clergyman; but before the time came 
for him to take his degree, he decided that the pulpit 
was not the place for him. His friends must have felt 
a little out of patience, for he seemed to have 

, ^ . . , r 1 1 T 1 Indecision. 

no very deiimte idea of what he did want. 
After teaching a while, he concluded that he did not 
want that in any case, and set to work to win his living 
from the world by writing. The world gave no sign of 
caring particularly for what he wrote or for his transla- 
tions from the German; and when he was thirty-one 
years of age, he seemed little further advanced on the 
road to literary glory than when he was twenty-five. In 
his thirty-first year he married Jane Welsh, a witty, 
clever young lady who was not without literary ability of 
her own. She had strong confidence in her husband's 
powers and a vast ambition for him to succeed. There 
was little income, and the only course seemed to be to 
go to her small farm of Craigenputtock; and there they 
lived for six years a most lonely life. Out of the soli- 
tude and dreariness came Sartor Resartiis, sartor 
''The Tailor Retailored." The foundation of f||5'.^"'- 
the book is the notion that as man is within 1^34. 
clothes, so the thought of God is within man and nature. 
The work did not meet a warm reception. "When is 
that stupid series of articles by the crazy tailor going 
to end?" asked one of the subscribers to Eraser's, the 
magazine in which it was published; and many people 
agreed with him, for while the pages were glowing with 
poetical feeling and sparkling with satire, the style was 
harsh and jagged and exasperating. Carlyle manufac- 



244 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1834-1840 

tured new words, and he used old ones in a fashion that 
seemed to his readers unpardonably ridiculous. It was 
very slowly that one after another found that the book 
had a message, a ringing cry to "Work while it is called 
To-day," and that its earnestness of purpose was arous- 
ing courage and breathing inspiration. 

Carlyle decided that it was best for him to live in 
London, and in 1834 Craigenputtock was abandoned. 
History of Three years later, his History of the French 
RevoiuS. Revolution was published, — not a clear story 
1837. by any means, but a series of flashlight pic- 

tures, so vivid and realistic that at last recognition came 
to him. For nearly thirty years he continued to write. 
Such keen, powerful sentences as these came from his 
pen: — 

" No man, it has been said, is a hero to his valet; and this is 
probably true; but the fault is at least as likely to be the valet's 
as the hero's." 

" No mortal has a right to wag his tongue, much less to wag 
his pen, without saying something." 

Here are some of his definitions: — 

" A dandy is a clothes-wearing man, — a man whose trade, 
office, and existence consist in the wearing of clothes." 

" Genius means the transcendent capacity of taking trouble, 
first of all." 

These sentences show Carlyle in his simplest style; 
but he was capable of such expressions as this: — 

" The all of things is an infinite conjugation of the verb — 
'To do.'" 

London he called "That monstrous tuberosity of civ- 
ilized life." 

His Heroes and Hcro-Worship appeared first as lee- 



1843-1865] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 245 

tures. Fifteen years of hard labor gave the world his 
History of the Life and Times of Frederick II, History of 
commonly called Frederick the Great. Then n"^i858- 
came honors that would have rejoiced the heart ^^^^• 
of the father who had believed in his boy, Carlyle never 
forgot that father, and of him he wrote, "Could I write 
my Books as he built his Houses, walk my way so man- 
fully through this shadow-world, and leave it with so 
little blame, it were more than all my hopes." What 
Carlyle looked upon as his greatest honor was his being 
chosen Lord Rector of the University at Edinburgh; but 
the joy was taken away from him almost before he had 
tasted it, for he had barely finished his inaugural address 
before word was brought of the death of his wife. He 
lived until 1881, fifteen years after meeting with this 
loss. During the year before his death, a cheap edition 
of Sartor Resarlus was issued, and thirty thousand copies 
were sold within a few weeks. Carlyle had found his 
audience. 

144. John Ruskin, 1819-1900. John Ruskin was a 
quiet, gentle little lad, who was brought up with books 
and pictures and travel and comforts of all sorts, watched 
over by the most loving of parents, but instantly pun- 
ished for the slightest disobedience. His parents, like 
Carlyle's, expected their son to be a clergyman. He 
grew up with the thought that he should be a preacher, 
and a preacher he was all his life, though he did not talk 
in pulpits but in books. His earliest books „ , 

1 n*- 7 r. • 1 • Modern 

were about art. Modern Painters was their Painters, 
name, and the first volume came out soon after "*3-i8^°- 
he had taken his degree at Oxford. His text was the 
landscape painting of Turner, whom he declared to be 
"the greatest painter of all time." However that might 
be, there was no question that the young man of twenty- 



246 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1S60-1889 

four was the greatest art critic of his time. For nearly 
twenty years he worked on the live volumes of Modern 
Painters, writing also during that time several books on 
stones of architecture. He almost always gave fanciful 
Venice. titles to his writings, and one of his earliest 

architectural works he called Stones of Venice. 
Ruskin was eager to have all, even the humblest of the 

workingmen, enjoy art and beauty; but he found 

Interest in . ^ , , r 1 

working- that it was very hard for a man to produce 
"^^°" works of art or even to enjoy beauty when he 

was not sure of his next meal. Such thoughts as these led 
Ruskin to write Unto This Last and Munera Puberis, 
Unto This wherein he discussed fearlessly the relations 
Last. 1862. i^etween rich and poor, employer and employed, 
puiveris. etc. His idcas were looked upon as revolu- 
tionary, and the magazine in which Unto This 
Last was coming out refused to continue publishing the 
chapters. In Ruskin's time there were better oppor- 
tunities to make fortunes than there had been before, 
and therefore the struggle for wealth was increasingly 
eager. He preached that not competition but Christian 
though tfulness was the proper spirit of trade; that idle- 
ness was guilt, but that labor should be made happy by 
the pleasures of art and the joy that comes from the 
ability to appreciate nature. These are the thoughts 
that leaven all his subsequent books, though he wrote 
on many different subjects, ever giving whimsically poeti- 
Doucaiion. cal titles; for example, Deucalion treats of "the 
sesame^^^" ^^P^^ ^^ waves and the life of stones;" Sesame 
and Lilies, and LiUcs treats of "Kings' Treasuries," by 
Praterita. which he means books and reading, and of 
1885-1889. "Queens' Gardens," that is, the education and 
rightful work of women. His final book, an autobiog- 
raphy, is called Prceterita. 



1843-1S60J THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 247 

Even the people who did not agree with Ruskin's 
theories could not help admiring his style and the wealth 
of imagination with which he beautified his sim- Ruskins 
plest statements. His richness of imagery is ^^^^^^ 
not like Spenser's, however, — so overpowering that the 
thought is lost. With Ruskin the thought is always 
present, always easy to find, and very often made beau- 
tiful. All this he accomplishes with the simplest Saxon 
words, for a generous share of his vocabulary came from 
the Bible, which in his childhood days he was required to 
read over and over, and long passages of which he was 
made to learn by heart. This is the way he describes 
the river Rhone: — 

There were pieces of waves that danced all day as if Perdita 
were looking on to learn; there were little streams that skipped 
like lambs and leaped like chamois; there were pools that shook 
the sunshine all through them, and were rippled in layers of over- 
laid ripples, like crystal sand; there were currents that twisted 
the light into golden braids, and inlaid the threads with turquoise 
enamel; there were strips of stream that had certainly above the 
lake been mill-streams, and were looking busily for mills to turn 
again; there were shoots of streams that had once shot fearfully 
into the air, and now sprang up again laughing that they had only 
fallen a foot or two; and in the midst of all the gay glittering and 
eddied lingering, the noble bearing by of the midmost depth, so 
mighty, yet so terrorless and harmless, with its swallows skim- 
ming instead of petrels, and the dear old decrepit town as safe 
in the embracing sweep of it as if it were set in a brooch of sap- 
phire. 

People might well admire such a manner of writing; 
and Ruskin once said half sadly, "All my life I have 
been talking to the people, and they have listened, not 
to what I say, but to how I say it.'' This is not true, 
however, for in art, in ethics, even in sociology, he has 
found a large audience of thoughtful, appreciative lis- 
teners. 



248 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1822-1S57 

145. Matthew Arnold, 1822-1888. Matthew Ar- 
nold was the son of Dr. Arnold, Head Master of Rugby, 
the "Doctor" of Tom Brown al Rugby. Ruskin was 
free to lead his life as he would. Arnold was a busy pub- 
lic official, for from his twenty-ninth year till three years 
before his death he was inspector of schools and could 
Greek give to literature only the spare bits of his 

restraint. time. Yet from those broken days came forth 
both poetry and prose that give him a high rank. He 
loved the Greek literature, and in his poems there is 
„, „ much of the Greek restraint which does for 

The For- 
saken Mer- his poetry what high-bred courtesy does for 

^^^' ' manners. In his Forsaken Merman, for in- 
stance, one of his most original and most exquisite 
poems, there is not a word of outspoken grief; but all 
the merman's loneliness and longing are in the oft- 
repeated line, — 

Children, dear, was it yesterday? 

Some readers are chilled by this reserve; but to those 
who sympathize, it suggests rather a strength of feeling 
that cannot weaken itself to words. The poem that he 
Rugby wrote in memory of his father after a visit to 
Sen Rugby Chapel fairly throbs with love and sup- 
1857. pressed sorrow, but he writes bravely: — 

O strong soul, by what shore 
Tarriest thou now? For that force 
Surely has not been left vain! 
Somewhere, surely, afar, 
In the sounding labour-house vast 
Of being, is practised that strength, 
Zealous, beneficent, firm! 

As a writer of prose, Matthew Arnold's special work 
is criticism of books and of Hfe. His trumpet gives no 



1843-1860] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 249 

uncertain sound. As he says, ''We must accustom our- 
selves to a high standard and to a strict judg- prose criti- 
ment." It is he who tells us that if we keep °*^"'" 
in mind lines and expressions of the great masters, they 
will serve as a touchstone to show us what onthe 
poetry is real. This he says in his essay On pJefry.°* 
the Study of Poetry, and it shows what clear, ^^^°- 
definite, helpful thoughts he has for those who go to him 
for advice or for pleasure. 

In this latest age of English literature, many poets 
have written well, but two only are counted as of the 
first rank, Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson. 

146. Robert Browning, 1812-1 889. One of the most 
interesting of Robert Browning's writings is a letter which 
says, " I love your verses with all my heart, dear The cry of 
Miss Barrett." Miss Barrett was the author of areil^^'ig^a. 
several volumes of poems, many of them full of The Rhyme 
sympathy, of tender sentiment, and of religious Duchess 
trust, — poems of the sort that sink into the ^^'^■ 
hearts of those who love a poem even without knowing 
why. One of these is The Cry of the Children, meaning 
the children who were toiling in mills and in mines. It 
pictures their sadness and weariness, and closes with the 
strong lines^ — 

But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper 
Than the strong man in his wrath. 

Another favorite is The Rhyme of the Duchess May, 
which ends with a good thought expressed with the 
poet's frequent disregard of rhyme: — 

And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incom- 
pleteness, 
Round our restlessness, His rest. 

The author had been an invalid for years, and she was 



250 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 



[1845-1861 



able to see only a few people 



She replied to Mr. Brown- 
ing's letter, "Sym- 
pathy is dear — very 
dear to me; but the 
sympathy of a poet, 
and of such a poet, 
is the quintessence 
of sympathy!" It 
was four months be- 
fore Miss Barrett 
was able to receive a 
call from Mr. Brown- 
ing, but at last they 
met. Some time la- 
ter they were mar- 
ried; and until the 
death of Mrs. Brown- 
ing, in I 86 I, they 
made their home 
in Italy, — a home 
which was ideal in 
its love and happiness. Mr. Browning had written much 
poetry, but it was not nearly so famous as that of his wife. 
It was harder to understand ; for some of it was on philoso- 
phical subjects, and some of it was dramatic. Sometimes 
Paracelsus, it is not easy to tell how to classify a poem; 
1835. ]^jg Paracelsus, for instance, is called a drama, 

but it is almost entirely made up of monologue. The 
simplest of his dramas is Pippa Passes. The 
young girl Pippa is a silk-winder who has but 
one holiday in the year. When the joyful 
morning has come, she names over the "Four Happiest" 
in the little town and says to herself, — 

I will pass each and see their happiness 
And envy none. 




ROBERT BROWNING 
1S12-1SS9 



Pippa 
Passes 
1841. 



1841-1869] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 251 

She "passes," first, by the house wherein is one of the 
"Happiest;" but Pippa does not know that this one and 
her lover have just committed a murder. As Pippa sings, 

God 's in his heaven — 

All's right with the world, 

the horror of their crime comes over them, and they re- 
pent of their evil. So the song of the pure little maiden 
touches the life of each one of the "Four Happiest;" 
but the child goes to sleep wondering whether she could 
ever come near enough to the great folk to "do good or 
evil to them some slight way." 

After their marriage both Mr. and Mrs. Browning 
continued to write. Mrs. Browning's most . 

^ Aurora 

conspicuous work was Aurora Leigh, a novel Leigh. 
in verse which discusses many sociological 
questions, — • too many for either a novel or a poem, — 
and her beautiful Sonnets from the Portuguese, sonnets 
which were in reality not from the Portuguese, Portuguese, 
but straight from her own heart, and which is^o. 
tell with most exquisite delicacy the story of her love 
for her husband. Browning published two volumes be- 
fore the death of his wife, Christmas Eve and Christmas 
Easter Day, and Men and Women. In 1868- Easter Day. 
69, more than thirty-five years after he began Jf^^^g^^ 
to write, he published The Ring and the Book, women. 
This is the story of an Italian murder, which The Ring 
in the course of the poem is related by a num- ^^^^^^ 
ber of different persons. It met with a hearty isea-iaes. 
reception, partly because it is not only a poem and a fine 
one, but also a wonderful picturing of the impression 
made by one act upon several unlike persons; Qjo^tnof 
and partly because in those thirty-five years Browning's 

. , , . . . c , lame. 

Brownmg s admirers, consistmg tor a long 

time of one reader here and another one there, had in- 



252 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1809-1S89 

creased until now his audience was ready for him. 
Indeed, it was growing with amazing rapidity, partly 
because of his real merit, and partly because he some- 
times wrote in most involved and obscure fashion. 
People who liked to think were pleased with the resist- 
ance of the more difficult poems; they liked to puzzle 
out the meaning. People who did not like to think but 
who did wish to be counted among the thinkers hastened 
to buy Browning's poems and to join Browning clubs. 

The best way for most people to enjoy these poems 
is not to struggle with some obscure and unimportant 
jiowio difficulty of phrase or of thought, but to read 
enjoy f[rst what they like best, and find little by little 

what he has said that belongs to them espe- 
cially. Read some of the shorter lyrics: Pros pice, The 
Lost Leader, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, that weird and 
fascinating rhyme for children, and Rabbi Ben Ezra, 
with its magnificent — 

Grow old along with me! 
The best is yet to be. 

Those last two lines are the keynote of Browning's in- 
spiration, his cheerful courage in looking at life and his 
robust confidence in the blessedness of the life that lies 
beyond. One cannot have too much of Browning. 

147. Alfred Tennyson, 1809-1892. Neither is it 
possible to have too much of Tennyson, who, far more 
than Browning, was the representative poet of the Vic- 
torian Age. Two stories have been saved from Ten- 
nyson's childhood. One is of the five-year-old child 
tossing his arms in the blast and crying, "I hear a voice 
that's speaking in the wind." The other is of an older 
brother's reading a slateful of the little Alfred's verses 
and declaring judicially, "Yes, you can write." There 
were twelve of the Tennyson children. "They all wrote 



1830-1832] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 



253 



verses," said a neighbor; and when Alfred was seven- 
teen and one of his brothers a year older, they published 
a little book of verse. Two years later Alfred entered 
college, and while in college he published Poems, 
Poems, Chiefly Lyrical. These seem less like Lyrical, 
completed works than like the first sketches of ^^^°- 
an artist for a picture. They are glimpses of the poet's 




ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 
1S09-1892 

talent, experiments in sound rather than expressions of 
thought. In 1832 he brought out a little poems, 
volume which ought to have convinced who- ^^^^• 
ever glanced at it that a true poet had arisen, for here 
were not only such poems as The May Queen and Lady 
Clara Vere de Vere, which were sure to strike the pop- 



254 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1833-1847 

ular fancy, but also The Dream of Fair Women, The 
Lotus-Eaters, and The Lady of Shalott. Never- 

Criticlsm. , , , . . ^ ■' ... 

theless, the critics were severe; and this was 
perhaps the best thing that could have happened to the 
Poems. young poet, for he set to work to study and 
R^conition ^bink. Ten years later he brought out two 
of his more volumes, and then there was no question 

gen us. ^j^^^ j_^^ ^^^ ^j^^ ^^^^ Y>oQt of his time. The best 

known of these poems are his thrilling little song, — 

Break, break, break, 

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! 
And I would that my tongue could utter 

The thoughts that arise in me, 

and Locksley Hall. The latter has been read and re- 
cited and quoted and parodied, but it is not even yet 
worn out. Here are the two stanzas that were Tenny- 
son's special favorites: — 

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; 
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. 

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with 

might ; 
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of 

sight. 

In these volumes, too, were Mortc d' Arthur and snatches 
of poems on Galahad and Launcelot, — enough to show 
that Tennyson had found old Malory, and that the stories 
of King Arthur and the Round Table were haunting his 
mind. When The Princess came out, there was some 
criticism of the impossible story in a probable 

The Pnn- . • , • r ^ i 1 

cess, a Med- setting, of the mingling of the earnest and the 
ey. 1847. l3^J.lggq^g^ which the poet had not entirely fore- 
stalled by calling the poem a Medley. It is a very beau- 
tiful medley, however, and the songs which were inter- 



1S47-1895] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 255 

spersed in the later edition are most exquisite. Here 
are "Sweet and Low," "The splendor falls on castle 
walls," and others. 

The year 1850 was a marked season for Tennyson. It 
was the year of his marriage to the lady from whom 
financial reasons had separated him for twelve in Memo- 
years; it was the year of publication of In ria^. isso. 
Memoriam and of his appointment as Laureate. In 
Memoriam was called forth by the death of Arthur Henry 
Hallam, Tennyson's best-loved college friend, which took 
place seventeen years earlier. It is a collection of short 
poems, gleams of his thoughts of his friend, changing as 
time passed from "large grief," from questioning, "How 
fares it with the happy dead?" from tender memories of 
Hallam's words and ways — from all these to the hour 
when he who grieved could rest — 

And hear at times a sentinel 

Who moves about from place to place, 
And whispers to the worids of space. 

In the deep night, that all is well. 

The duties of the Laureate have vanished, but there is a 
mild expectation that he will manifest some interest in 
the greater events of the kingdom by an occa- , 

° ° / Laureate, 

sional poem. Tennyson fulfilled this expecta- 
tion generously, and his Laureate poems have a clear ring 
of sincerity. They range all the way from his welcome 
to Queen Alexandra, consort of Edward VII, — 
Sea-kings' daughter from over the sea, 

to his superb Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington: 

Bury the Great Duke 

With an empire's lamentation, 
Let us bury the Great Duke 

To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation. 



256 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1859-1S64 

The Idylls ^°^ ^^^^ Sincerity, but tender respect and 
of the King, sympathy, unite in his dedication of the Idvlls 

1859-1885. i- .7 r • . .1 r T-. • All .' 

. oj the King to the memory of Prince Albert: — 

These to His Memory — since he held them dear, 
Perchance as finding there unconsciously 
Some image of himself 

To the queen in her sadness he says : — 

Break not, O woman's heart, but still endure; 
Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure. 

In the Idylls Tennyson had come to his kingdom; for 
the "dim, rich" legends were after his own heart. Here 
was a thread of story which he could alter as he would; 
here were love, valor, innocence, faithlessness, treachery, 
religious ecstasy, an earthly journey with a heavenly 
recompense. Here were opportunities for the brilliant 
and varied ornament in which he delighted, for all the 
beauties of description, and for a character drawing as 
strong as it was delicate. 

In the Idylls Tennyson shows his power to present 
the complex in character; but in Enoch Arden he draws 
Enoch ^'^th. no less skill a simple fisherman who 

Arden. through no fault of his own meets lifelong sor- 

row and loneliness. Enoch is wrecked on a 
desert island, and his wife, believing him dead, finally 
yields and marries his friend. After many years Enoch 
finds his way home, but his home is his no more, and 
he prays: — 

Uphold me. Father, in my loneliness 
A little longer! aid me, give me strength 
Not to tell her, never to let her know. 
Help me not to break in upon her peace. 

So simply, so naturally is the story told that the whole 
force of the silent tragedy, of the greatness of the fish- 



1864-1S92] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 257 

erman hero, is not realized till the triumph of the closing 
words, — 

So past the strong, heroic soul away. 

Yielding to the fascination which the drama has for 
men of literary genius, Tennyson wrote several Tennyson's 
historical plays, but this was not his field. The ^r^"**- 
characters are not lifelike, and, though the plays read 
well, they do not act well. 

Among his last work was Crossing the Bar. Every 
true poet has a message. His was of faith and trust, and 
nothing could be more fitting as his envoy than the 
closing stanza of this lyric : — 

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place 

The Hood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 

When I have crost the bar. 

148. The age of the pen. The nineteenth century 
has been called the age of steam and electricity; but 
perhaps a better name would be the age of the pen, for 
almost every one writes. In this mass of literary work 
there is much excellence; but, leaving out the greatest 
authors, only a prophet could select "the few, the im- 
mortal names that were not born to die." The historical 
value of these many writers is unknown, their intrinsic 
value is undecided; criticism is variable, and is prejudiced 
by their nearness. Nevertheless, it is hard to pass over 
the "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood," such a group of 
poets as William Morris with his Earthly Paradise, Dante 
Gabriel Rossetti with the weird charm of his Blessed 
Damozel; and Algernon Charles Swinburne, whose 
verses, ever strong and intense, reveal the touch of a 
master of all music. 

Aside from the historians already named, the greater 



258 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1S37-1863 

number of writers of history have taken England for 
their theme. John Richard Green, in his Short History 
of the English People, gave new Hfe to the men of the 
olden times; Edward Augustus Freeman, ever accurate 
and painstaking, wrote of the Norman Conquest; James 
Anthony Froude was, like Macaulay, a partisan, and 
therefore not always to be trusted in his estimates of 
men, but, like Macaulay, he possessed the "historical 
imagination," which is, after all, little more than the 
ability to remember that men of the past were as human 
as men of the present. 

Among scientific writings Charles Darwin's Origin of 
Species, Sir Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology, and 
the works of Tyndall and Huxley have been most widely 
read. The names of essayists and critics are many. 
Walter Pater with his harmonious sentences, John 
Henry Newman with his exquisitely polished diction, 
are well known and are well worthy of honor. Espe- 
cially hopeless is the effort to make a satisfactory choice 
among the novelists. Not every one would dream of 
attempting a scientific treatise or a volume of even sec- 
ond-rate poetry; but who is there, from Disraeli, the 
British premier, to the young girl whose graduation 
gown is still fresh, that does not feel the longing to pro- 
duce a novel? Edward Bulwer Lytton, Lord Lytton, 
won fame in the thirties by his Last Days of Pompeii. 
Charles Kingsley's first novel, Alton Locke, gave vivid 
descriptions of life in London workshops. Westward 
Ho! whose scene was laid in the days of Queen Eliza- 
beth, is called his best prose work. His poems are of 
the sort that linger in the memory. "Three fishers 
went sailing away to the west" will long be a favorite. 
Among his best loved work is Water Babies, that fas- 
cinating mingling of a delightful story for children with 



1S65-18S2] thl: cknturv of the novel 259 

the keenest of satire. Another child's book that can 
hardly help being a favorite as long as there are children 
to enjoy it is the Alice in Wonderland of "Lewis Carroll." 
The story is told that Queen Victoria once asked him if 
he would not send her another of his delightful books, 







CARDINAL NEWMAN 



and that he responded by presenting her with a mathe- 
matical treatise; for "Lewis Carroll" when out of print 
was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a learned professor of 
mathematics. Anthony Trollope was the author of 
many novels, of which Barchester Towers has been the 
favorite. Probably no one ever sat up all night to see 
how any one of his stories was going to end, but they are 
faithful pictures of the life of his time. Charles Reade 



26o ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [1870-1921 

wrote far more thrilling stories, Put Yourself in His 
Place and others, which aimed vigorous blows at some 
social injustice. William Wilkie Collins wrote The 
Woman in White, The Moonstone, and other novels. 
These were a new departure in fiction, for he made no 
special effort to draw character, but tried, rather, to 
make plots which would puzzle and mystify his readers. 
Richard Doddridge Blackmore wrote nearly a score of 
novels, but the reading world has fixed upon his seven- 
teenth century romance, Lorna Doone, as the one upon 
which his reputation is to rest. The names of many 
novelists of the day are famiUar. There are Barrie, 
Galsworthy, and Shaw, who -are also dramatists; there 
are Conrad, Wells, Bennett, and many others. Probably 
each one of these has been told time and again that he 
is the greatest novelist of the twentieth century. Pos- 
sibly that worthy is among them, but who can say 
whether the excellence that we see, or believe that we 
see, in the work of numerous writers is really enduring 
excellence or only some quality so especially congenial to 
our own times that it seems preeminently excellent to us. 

In recent poetry, Alfred Noyes and Henry Newbolt 
are in the front ranks as writers of ballads, patriotic, and 
Recent heroic verse. Much interest has been aroused 
Poetry. jn the early literature of Ireland. There is a 
feeling that the subjects and phrases pecuhar to poetry 
are worn out, that poets must go back to a certain prim- 
itive simplicity, to legends and early romance. Yeats, 
Synge, and others have turned to Irish themes. The 
verse of the Irish poets is especially fresh and winning. 
Its lyrics are sweet and strong, its satire merry rather 
than bitter, and through it runs a quiet dignity utterly 
without self-consciousness. 

Akin to this movement is that in favor of what has 



1914-1021] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 261 

received the name of "new verse." In this, the writer 
avoids the subjects, phrases, and meters that have been 
looked upon as suited to poetry, and aims at selecting 
everyday subjects and writing of them in colloquial lan- 
guage in "vers libre," ox free verse, that is, verse with- 
out rhyme or regular meter. This is somewhat like 
Wordsworth's earlier theories; but perhaps even the ar- 
dent admirers of new verse would admit that Words- 
worth's best work was done when he forgot his theories. 
Nevertheless, however distasteful a new fashion may be 
to those who love the older fashions, it is worth remem- 
bering that a new theory, of verse or anything else, often 
seizes upon some weakness of the old and prevents it 
from going to extremes. 

The amount of literary composition inspired by the 
Great War is enormous. There has been room for every- 
thing, and everything has been eagerly read, ^heLitera- 
whether it was a thrilling account of some mil- tureoftho 
itary or naval action, an earnest novel of pur- 
pose, a tender home-letter — reproduced in a magazine 
— or any one of the mass of poems. Of the novels, Mr. 
Britling Sees it Through, by H. G. Wells, pictures vividly 
quiet, peaceful England slowly opening her eyes to the 
fact that a life struggle was upon her. As to the quality 
of the war verse, little of it is of special excellence. It 
is not during a war, but after a war, that the really 
great war poems have been produced. Gibson, Mase- 
field, and Hardy have aW written war poems that are 
poems; but they would probably write better ones 
to-day, and still better if the war was twenty years old. 
Love of mother country has never been more passion- 
ately expressed than in the sonnets of Rupert Brooke. 
The friends of many whose bodies lie, like his, in foreign 
soil have been comforted by his lines. 



262 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [Sth-igth Cent. 

If I should die, think only this of me, 
That there 's some corner of a foreign field 
That is forever England. 

So it is that the stream of England's literature has 
moved onward. We can judge fairly of the earlier com- 
positions, but whether the more recent fashions and 
methods are strong and lasting currents or whether they 
are only eddies and ripples, it is too early to decide. 

For twelve hundred years or longer this stream has 
flowed, now narrowed, now broadened, but ever moving 
„ , , onward. The epic has swept on from the sim- 

Concluslon. ^ . ^. 

pie thought and primeval virtues of Beowulf to 
the harmonious organ tones of Paradise Lost. The drama, 
beginning with the mystery play, has come to its height 
under the magic touch of Shakespeare, and presents not 
only action but that intangible thing, thought, and de- 
velopment of character. The early lyric is known to us 
in a single poem, Widsith. To-day lyric poetry means 
the glorious outburst of song of the Elizabethan times; it 
means such poems as Browning's Prospice, wherein the 
physical courage of the viking has become the religious 
courage of the Christian; and it means such delicate, 
thoughtful, sympathetic love of nature and such exquis- 
iteness of expression as are shown in the works of Burns 
and Wordsworth and Tennyson. Prose, at first as heavy 
and rough and clumsy as a weapon of some savage tribe, 
has become through centuries of hammering and filing 
and tempering as keen as a Damascus blade. History, 
which was at first the bare statement of certain occur- 
rences, has become a vivid panorama of events, combined 
with profound study of their causes and their results. 
Biography is no longer the throwing of a preternatural 
halo around its subject; the ideal biography of to-day is 
that which, uncolored by the prejudice of the writer, pre- 



i9tli-2oth Cent.] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 263 

sents the man himself as interpreted by his deeds and 
words. The novel is the form of literary expression be- 
longing especially to the present age; and because of its 
very nearness to us in time and in interest, the judgment 
of its merits is difficult. Of two points, however, we may 
be sure; first, that to centre in one character of a book 




THE poets' corner, WESTMINSTER ABBEY 



all interest and all careful workmanship is a mark of de- 
generacy; second, that to picture Hfe faithfully, but with 
the faithfulness of the artist and not of the camera, is 
a mark of excellence. It is this requirement of faithful- 
ness to truth which is after all the most worthy literary 
"note" of our age. The history must be accurate; the 
biography must be unprejudiced; the reasoning of the 
essay must be without fallacy; the poem must flash out 
a genuine thought; and the novel that would endure 
must be true to life. Whatever the future of England's 



264 



ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [i9th-2oth Cent. 



literature may be, it has at least the foundation of honest 
effort and an inexorable demand for sincerity and truth. 



Century XIX 

CENTURY OF THE N( 
Before 1S12 



The "Lake Poets:" 

William Wordsworth. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 

Robert Southey. 
The romantic poets : 

Walter Scott (historical nov- 
elist). 

Lord Byron. 

The realist : 
Jane Austen. 



Lovers of beauty: 
Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
John Keats. 

Essayists : 

Charles Lamb. 
Thomas De Quincey. 



After 1S32 



Novelists: 

Charles Dickens. 

William Makepeace Thackeray. 

Charlotte Bronte. 

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. 

"George Eliot." 

Essayists : 

Thomas Babington Macaulay 

(historian). 
Thomas Carlyle. 
John Ruskin. 
Matthew Arnold. 



George Meredith. 
Thomas Hardy. 
Robert Louis Stevenson. 
Rudyard Kipling. 

Poets : 
Robert Browning and 

Browning. 
Alfred Tennyson. 



Mrs. 



SUMMARY 

During the first thirty years of the century the principal 
authors were : — 

I. The "Lake Poets," — Wordsworth, Coleridge, and 
Southey. Wordsworth believed that poetry should treat of 
simple subjects in every-day language. Coleridge believed 



i9tIi-2oth Cent.] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 265 

in treating lofty subjects in a realistic manner. These theo- 
ries were illustrated by We Are Seven and 77ie Ancient Mar- 
iner. Southey wrote weird epics whose scenes were laid in 
distant lands, and also many histories and biographies. 
Coleridge had universal talent, but left everything incom- 
plete. Wordsworth quietly wrote on, and slowly his power 
to describe and interpret nature was recognized. 

2. The romantic writers, Scott and Byron. Scott's first 
work was ballad writing and ballad collecting. Then came 
the Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, etc. Byron's poetry 
won the attention of the crowd, and Scott then devoted him- 
self to the Waverley novels. He undertook also histories, 
biographies, and translations ; and the inventor of the his- 
torical novel died of overwork. 

Byron's first poetry was savagely reviewed, and he replied 
fiercely. Childe LLarold made him famous. He wrote many 
cynical, romantic narrative poems and many beautiful de- 
scriptions of nature. He died while trying to help the Greeks 
win freedom from the Turks. 

3. The lovers of beauty, Shelley and Keats. Shelley's life 
was a continual revolt against established law. His poems 
are marked not only by beauty but by a certain light and 
airy quality which makes them unlike other poems. 

Keats 's first poem, Endymion, was criticised as savagely as 
Byron's early work. He made no reply and continued to 
write. Although he died at the age of twenty-four, he is 
ranked among the first of those who have created beauty. 

4. The essayists. Lamb and De Quincey. Lamb could 
give to literature only fragments of his time. He attempted 
poems, stories, and plays ; but had no special success till the 
publication of Tales from Shakespeare. His best work was 
his Essays of Ella, wherein he shows himself the most grace- 
ful and charming of humorists. 

De Quincey's first work, Confessions of an Efiglish Opium- 
Eater, won much attention and was the first of his one 
hundred and fifty magazine articles ; wherein he is dreamy. 



266 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [i9th-2oth Cent. 

whimsical, or merely the teller of a plain story, as the mood 
seizes him ; but is always interesting. 

5. The magazine critics. The Edinburgh Revieiv^ edited 
by Jeffrey; the Quarterly Reviimi ; and B/ac/rwood's, edited by 
John Wilson, were all founded during the first twenty years 
of the century. 

6. The realist, Jane Austen, who wrote quiet novels of 
home life with exceedingly good delineation of character. 

In 1832, nearly all these authors were dead or had ceased 
to write. There were changes in government ; education be- 
came more general ; reading matter was cheaper ; scientific 
discoveries aroused thought. During the half-century follow- 
ing 1832, there was a remarkable development of: — 

1. The novel, in the hands of Dickens, Thackeray, and 
"George Eliot." The. Pickwick Papers made Dickens famous. 
During twenty years he published novel after novel, merry, 
pathetic, but always charming; even though the characters 
often seem unreal and are usually labelled by some one 
quality. 

Thackeray was less amusing and won fame more slowly. 
He was a satirist, but a kindly one. He wrote not only 
novels but lectures, literary and historical, and historical 
novels. 

" George Eliot " did not attempt fiction till she was thirty- 
seven,' but her first work was so successful that after its pub- 
lication she devoted herself to novel writing. Even aside 
from their literary merit, the justice and charity of her nov- 
els can hardly fail to make them lasting. 

During the lives of these three, younger novelists were 
pressing forward for recognition. Chief among them were 
George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson, 
and, somewhat later, Rudyard Kipling. 

2. The essay, in the hands of Macaulay, Carlyle, Ruskin, 
and Arnold. Macaulay wrote at twenty-five his essay on 
Milton, the brilliant style of which brought him recognition. 
He wrote many essays, some poetry, and then his History of 



i9th-2oth Cent.] THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL 267 

England. This was not impartial by any means, but was 
intensely interesting and sold in enormous numbers. 

Carlyle had reached middle age before his talent was rec- 
ognized, chiefly because he often wrote in a harsh and dis- 
agreeable style. His Life of Frederick If, published when 
he was between sixty and seventy, brought him wide fame 
and honors of all kinds. 

Ruskin at the age of twenty-four was recognized as the 
greatest art critic of his time. His love of beauty and his 
wish that workingmen should enjoy it led him to a fearless 
discussion of the relations between rich and poor, and there- 
by he aroused severe criticism. His style, however, was ad- 
mired by all. 

Arnold, like Lamb, could give to literature only spare 
minutes. His poems are marked by a Greek restraint. His 
prose was in great degree made up of criticism of books and 
life ; in both of which he insisted upon a high standard. 

3. In poetry, Browning and Tennyson are counted as of 
the first rank. Browning's wife was famous as a poet in her 
early years, but appreciation came to him slowly. For thirty- 
five years he found only scattered admirers. Then he pub- 
lished The Ring and the Book, and at last his audience was 
ready. His writings are often involved in thought and in 
phrase ; but they are of a high order of poetry and are 
marked by courage and faith. 

Tennyson was the representative poet of the Victorian 
Age. His first work seems like experiments in sound. Ex- 
cellent as it is, it met severe criticism. Twelve years after 
the publication of his first volume he was recognized as the 
first poet of his time. His most popular works are /// Memo- 
riam, Tlie Idylls of the King, an4 Enoch Arden, three poems 
of utterly different character. His Laureate poems have an 
unusual ring of sincerity. His attempts at drama were not 
successful. His message, like Browning's, was one of faith 
and trust. 

Besides those mentioned, the century has been rich in 



268 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE [i9th-20th Cent. 

poets- novelists, historians, scientists, and essayists, many of 
whom in almost any other age would have been looked upon 
as men of the highest genius. 

Tracing the course of English literature for twelve hundred 
years, we see the development of both poetry and prose from 
the simplest beg-innings to a high degree of excellence. The 
novel is the special form of literary expression characteristic 
of this age. In it, as in all other literary work of the timCj 
the figst demand -is for faithfulness to truth. 



A WORD ABOUT AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

We are so near to even the beginning of our American 
literature that to write its history is an especially difficult 
undertaking. Too little time has passed to trace influ- 
ences and tendencies, perhaps even to estimate justly 
the value of the work whose strongest appeal is not to 
the present. During the last century, our world has 
moved so swiftly that the light has flashed now upon one 
writer, now upon another. Who can foretell upon which 
the noontide of to-morrow will shine most brilliantly .-' 
Who can say whether our realism will not seem unworthy 
triviality, whether the closely connected sentences of 
our best prose may not present the repellent formality 
of conscious art.-* In every decade many writers have 
come forward whose names it seems ungracious to omit. 
Wherever the lines are drawn, they will appear to some 
one an arbitrary and unreasonable barrier. A single 
slender volume can make no pretensions to complete- 
ness ; but if this one only leads its readers to feel a 
friendship for the authors mentioned on its pages, and 
a wish to know more of them and their writings, its ob' 
ject will ha\'e been accomplislied. 



A SHORT HISTORY 
OF AMERICA'S LITERATURE 



CHAPTER I 



THE COLONIAL PERIOD 

1 607-1 765 

1. Literary work in England. In the early part of 
the seventeenth century England was all aglow with 
literary inspiration. Shakespeare was writing his noblest 
tragedies. Ben Jonson was writing plays, adoring his 
friend Shakespeare, and growling at him because he 
would not observe the rules of the classical drama. 
Francis Bacon was rising swiftly to the height of his 
glory as Chancellor of England and incidentally com- 
posing essays so keen and strong and brilliant that he 
seems to have said the last word on whatever subject 
he touches. There were many lesser lights, several of 
whom would have been counted great in any other age. 

2. Early American histories. In all the blaze of 
this literary glory colonists began to sail away from the 
shores of England for the New World. They had to 
meet famine, cold, pestilence, hard work, and danger from 
the Indians. Nevertheless, our old friend, John Smith, 
wrote a book on Virginia, and George Sandys completed 
on Virginian soil his translation of Ovid's Metamor- 
phoses. These men, however, were only visitors to 
America ; and, important as their writings may be his- 
torically or poetically, they have small connection with 
American literature. It was on the rockbound coast of 



2/^ AMERICA'S LITERATURE [i596-»6s7 

Massachusetts that our Hterature made its real begin- 
ning. The earnest, serious Pilgrims and Puritans dis- 
approved of the plays and masques that were flourishing 
in England ; pastoral verse was tO them a silly affecta- 
tion ; the delicate acciwacy of the sonnet showed a sin- 
ful waste of time- and thought. They were striving to 
make an abode for righteousness, and whatever did not 
manifestly conduce to that^singJe aim, they counted as of 
evil. Writing their own history, however, was reckoned 
•a most godly work. " We are the Lord's chosen people," 
they said to themselves with humble pride. " His hand 
is ever guiding us. Whatever happens to us then must 
be of importance, and for the glory of God it should 
be recorded," With this thought in mind, Governor 
William William Bradford of Plymouth, the " Father of 
Bradford, American' H istory," wrote his History of Plym- 

1B90-1657. ,, r>/ . .• .<• 1 • ^-i >> i 

outk Flantahon, "ni a plaine stile, as he 
says, and "with singuler regard unto y^ simple trueth 
in all things." He tells about the struggles and suffer- 
ings of his people in the Old World, about that famous 
scene in Holland when "their Reve*? pastor falling 
downe on his knees, (and they all with him,) with watri 
cheeks comended them with most fervent praiers to the 
Lord and his bfessing. And then with mutuall imbrases 
and many tears, they tooke their leaves one of an other ; 
which proved to be y^ last leaV^e to many of them." 
Governor Bradford cotild picture well such a scene as 
this, and he could also write spicily of the lordly salt- 
maker who came among them, ""^e could not doe 
anything bUt borl salt r'n pans," says the Governor, "and 
yet would make them y* were joynd with him beleeve 
there was so great misterie in it as was not easie to be 
attained, and made them doe many unnecessary things 
to blind their eys, till they discerned his sutltie." 



1588-1649] THE COLONIAL PERIOD 273 

A second history, that of New England, was also writ- 
ten by a governor, John Winthrop of the Massachusetts 
Bay Colony. Among his accounts of weightier j^j^^i^. 
matters he does not forget to tell of the little tiirop, 
everyday occurrences, — of the chimriey that ^^*^" ®**" 
took fire, of the calf that wandered away and was lost, of 
the two young men on shipbtDard who were punished for 
fighting by having their hands tied behind them and 
being ordered to walk up and down the deck all day, of 
the strange visions and lights that were seen and th'e 
strange voices that were heard. It is such details as these 
that carry us back to the lives of our ancestors, th^QJr 
fears and their troubles. 

3. The Bay Psalm Book, 1640. While these two 
histories were being written, three learned men in Mas- 
sachusetts set to work to prepare a version of the 
Psalms to use in church. A mon>entOus question arose : 
Would it be right to use a trivial and imnecessary 
ornament like rhyme.-' "There is sometimes rhyme in 
the original Hebrew," said one, "and therefore it must 
be right to use it." Thus established, they took their 
pens in hand, and in 1640 the famous Bay Psalm Book 
was published in America, the first book printed ©n 
American soil. This was the version of Psalm xxxv, 5 : — 

As chaffe before the winde, let them 
be, & Gods Angell them driving. 
Let their way dark and slippery bee, 
and the Lords Angell them chasing. 

The "Admonition to the Reader" at the end of the 
book declares that many of these psalms may be sung 
to "neere fourty common tunes," and indeed there s.eems 
no reason why a hymn Hke this should jiot be sung to 
one ^ tune as well as another. Now these struggling 
poets were scholars ; two of them were university grad- 



2/4 AMERICA'S LITERATURE .[1631-1715 

nates. They had Hved in England during the noblest 
age of English poetry. Why, then, did they make the 
Psalms into such doggerel ? The reason was that they 
were in agonies of conscience lest they should allow the 
charm of some poetical expression to lure them away 
from the seriousness of truth ; and they declared with 
artless complacency and somewhat unnecessary frank- 
ness that they had " attended Conscience rather than 
Elegance, fidelity rather than poetry." 

A generous amount of verse was written in the colo- 
nies even in the early days. Many of the settlers were 
educated men, fully accustomed to putting their thoughts 
on paper, and they seemed to feel that it dignified a 
thought to make it into verse. Religion was the all- 
absorbing subject, and therefore they have left us many 
thousand lines of religious hopes and fears. Unfortu- 
nately, it takes more than study to make a man a poet, 
and hardly a line of all the accumulation can be called 
poetry. 

4. Michael Wigglesworth, 1631-1705. The most 
lengthy piece of this early colonial rhyme was produced 
The Day of ^Y ^^ Reverend Michael Wigglesworth of 
Doom, 1662. Maiden. It was called The Day of Doom, or, 
A Poetical Description of the Great and Last yndgment. 
It painted with considerable imaginative power the Last 
Judgment as the Reverend Michael thought it ought to 
be. After the condemnation of the other sinners, the 
"reprobate infants," the children who had died in baby- 
hood, appear at the bar of God and plead that they are 
not to blame for what Adam did. They say : — 

Not we, but he ate of the Tree 

whose fruit was interdicted : 
Yet on us all of his sad Fall, 

the punishment 's inflicted. 



1612-1672] THE COLONIAL PERIOD 275 

The answer is : — 

A Crime it is, therefore in bliss 

you may not-hope to dwell ; 
But unto you I shall allow 

the easiest room in Hell. 

The early colonists bought this book in such numbers 
that it may be looked upon as America's first and great- 
est literary success. The first year 1800 copies were 
sold ; and it is esti- 
mated that with our 
increased popula- 
tion this would be 
equivalent to a sale 
of 2,000,000 copies 
to-day. 

5. Anne Brad- 
street, 1612 or 
1613-1672. The 
praise of Michael 
Wigglesworth was 
as naught when 
compared with the 
glory of one Mis- 
tress Anne Brad- 
street, who abode 
with her husband 
and eight children 
in the wilderness 
of Andover and 
therein did write 
much poetry. Peo- 
ple were in ecsta- 
sies over her compositions, and they did not accuse her 
publisher of exaggeration when he wrote on the title- 



t THE I 

I TENTH MUSE | 

I Lately fprurig up in Amer iCA. t 
1 OR I 

I Severall Poems, Compiled | 
I with great variety of VVit I 

1 andLcarning/uUofdcliglit. g 
J Wherein clpccially is conraincd a com- g 
•g pleat difcourfe and dcfcription of g, 

2 ("Elements, i" 

The Four)^""/^'""'""'» 



^Agei of Man., 



.Sctifotis ef tht TeiT. 

^Together with an Exaft Epiromic of I 

•| the Four MonarchieSj vik. % 

I The <^''fi'"> I 

•a ^ Koman. ? 

v Alfo a Dialognc between Old England and % 
^ Njw,concerning the late troubles. g 

■0 __^yjl|;_^'^^^^jj>^p]^^_T[;inr j>nd fcrio u s Poems. ^ 
4 ^Y aGentlewomanTn iliDfc^art?. §| 

9 Pi\nic>ii,U'ilon'(or'Sl.p\-n Bwrrf/'aFthc flg^ otTht % 
^ R'Hcii Popes He?d- Alley. If JO. A 

THE TITLE-PAGE OF ANNE BRADSTREET'S 
BOOK OF POEMS 



276 AMERICA'S 'LITERATURE [1678-1690 

page of her book, " Severall Poems, compiled with great 
variety of Wit and Learning, full of delight." She was 
called " The Tenth Muse, lately sprung up in 
Poems, &c. America." Learned Cotton Mather declared 
•'■^^®" that her work " would outlast the stateliest 

marble." However that may be, it was certainly the 
nearest approach to poetry that the colonies produced 
during their first century, and now and then we find a 
phrase with some little poetic merit. In her poem Con- 
templations, for instance, are the lines : — 
I heard the merry grasshopper then sing, 

The black-clad cricket bear a second part; 
They kept one tune and played on the same string, 
Seetniiig to glory in tlieir little art. 

6. The children's book. One cannot help wonder- 
ing a little what the children found to read in colonial 
days, for the youngest baby Pilgrim was an old man 
before it occurred to any one to write a child's book. 
Even then, it was a book that most of the boys and girls 
of to-day would think rather dull, for it was a serious 

little schoolbook called the Neiv Eiis^land 
Now Eng- * 

land Prmier. No one knows who wrote it, but it 

between ^^^ published by one Benjamin Harris at his 
1687 and coffcc-house and bookstore in Boston, "by the 
Town-Pump near the Change," some time be- 
tween 1687 and 1690. It contained such knowledge as 
was thought absolutely necessary for children. After 
the alphabet came a long list of two-letter combinations, 
" ab, eb, ib, ob, ub ; ac, ec, ic, oc, uc," etc. ; then a list of 
words of one syllable ; and at last the child had worked 
his way triumphantly to " a-bom-i-na-tion " and "qual-i- 
fi-ca-tion." There were several short and simple prayers, 
and there was a picture of the martyr, John Rogers, 
standing composedly in the flames while his family wept 



16S7-I690] 

around him, and the 
There was a sec- 
ond alphabet with a 
rhyme and a pic- i 
ture for every let- 
ter. It began : — 

In Adam's Fall 
We sinned all. 

In the course of 
countless reprints, 
many changes were 
made. It is said I 
that in one edition 
or another the coup- 
let for every letter I 
in the alphabet was 
changed except 
that for A; but the ] 
Puritan never gave 
up his firm grasp 
upon the belief in 
original sin. For a 
century these two 
lines were a part 
of every orthodox 
child's moral equip- 
ment, and they were 
the keynote of the 
greater part of the 
prose and rhyme 
produced in Amer- 
ica during the colo- 
nial period. 



THE COLONIAL PERIOD 277 

executioner grinned maliciously. 



G 



H 




la A D A K ' s Fall 
We finned all. 



Heaven to find, 
The Bible Mind. 



Chrift crucify'd 
For iinners dy'd. 



The Deluge drown'd 
The EariharoDnd. 



E LITAHhld 

By Eavens fed. 



The judgment made 
F E X 1 X afraid. 



As runs the Glass, 
Our Life doth pass. 



My Boole and Heart 
Must never part. 



Jon feels the Rod,— 
Yet bleffes GOD. 



_ Proud Korah's troop 
Was fvvallowed up. 



THE ALPHABET IN THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER 




2/8 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1663-1728 

7. Cotton Mather, 1663-1728. Even if almost all 
the colonial books were written for the grown folk, the 
children and their future were not forgotten. How 
to make -sure of educated ministers for them and for 
their children's children was the question. It was set- 
tled by the founding of Harvard College in 1636, only 
sixteen years after the little band of Pilgrims landed at 
Plymouth. One of its most famous graduates during 
the colonial days was the Reverend Cotton Mather. He 
took his degree at fifteen, and three years later he was 
already so famous for his learning that he received an 
urgent call to become a pastor in far-away New Haven. 
He refused, became his father's assistant at the North 
Church in Boston ; and at the North Church he re- 
mained for more than forty years. Preaching, however, 
was but a small part of his work. He had the largest 
library in the colonies, and he knew it thoroughly. He 
could write in seven languages ; he was deeply interested 
in science ; he kept fasts and vigils innumerable. He 
was grave and somewhat stern in manner, and people 
were seldom quite at ease with him ; but he had a tender 
spot in his heart for boys and girls, and whenever he 
passed through a village, he used to beg a holiday for 
the children of the place. He was horrified at the sever- 
ity shown in the schools of the day ; and among his own 
flock of fifteen there was rarely any punishment more 
severe than to be forbidden to enter his presence. One 
of his sons wrote that their father never rose from the 
table without first telling them some entertaining story, 
and that when a child had done some little deed that he 
knew would please the stately minister, he would run to 
him, and say, " Now, father, tell me some curious thing." 

With all his other occupations, he did an immense 
amount of writing. Nearly four hundred books and pam- 



I702] THE COLONIAL PERIOD 279 

phlets have been published, and there are still thou- 
sands of pages in manuscript. His best-known book is 
his Magnalia Christi Americana, or The Eccle- Magnaiia 
siastical History of Nezv England. Like Bede's christi, 
Ecclesiastical History, it is much more enter- 
taining than one would think from its ponderous title. 
Cotton Mather's aim was to record the dealings of God 
with his chosen people, and the character of those peo- 
ple. He followed the fashion of dropping in bits of 
Latin and Greek, and making intricate contrasts and 
comparisons that sometimes remind the reader of John 
Donne — without Donne's genius. He begins the book 
with an imitation of the /Eneid, which he and his early- 
readers probably thought extremely effective. But there 
is much besides a Virgilian preface in liis work. There 
are enthusiastic descriptions of the men whom he ad- 
mired, written with many a touch of beauty and sincere 
tenderness. Then, too, the book is a perfect storehouse 
of all sorts of wonder-tales : the story of the " ship in the 
air" which Longfellow made into a rhyme, using often 
the very words of the old chronicler ; that of the two- 
headed snake of Newbury, of which Whittier wrote ; and 
many others. Among the pages that bristle with august 
phrases from the dead languages, we find here and there 
some simple story like the following, which is told of 
Winthrop, and which makes us feel that Mather in his 
wig and bands and Winthrop in his exasperatingly un- 
tumbled ruff are not so unlike men of to-day, and would 
be exceedingly interesting people to know : — 

In a hard and long Winter, when Wood was very scarce at Bos- 
ton, a Man gave him a private Information, that a needy Person 
in his Neighbourhood stole Wood sometimes from his Pile ; where- 
upon the Governour in a seeming Anger did reply, Does he so ? 
I '11 take a Course with him ; go, call that Man t-o me, I '11 warrant 



28o AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1652-1758 

you I 'II cure him of stealing ! When the Man came, the Govern- 
our considering that if he had Stoln, it was more out of Necessity 
than Disposition, said unto him. Friend, It is a severe Winter, and 
I doubt you are but meanly provided for Wood ; wherefore I would 
have you supply yourself at my Wood-Pile till this cold Season be 
over. And he then Merrily asked his Friends, Whether he had not 
effectually cured this Man of Stealing his Wood ? 



8. Samuel Sewall, 1652-1730. During the greater 
part of Cotton Mather's Hfe an interesting diary was be- 
ing written by Judge Samuel Sewall. He tells of being 
comfortable in the stoveless meeting-house, though his 
ink froze by a good fire at home ; of whipping his little 
Joseph "pretty smartly" for "playing at Prayer-time 
and eating when Returne Thanks ; " of the lady who 
cruelly refused to bestow her hand upon the eager wid- 
ower, even though wooed with prodigal munificence by 
the gift of " one-half pound of sugar almonds, cost three 
shillings per pound." Though the writings of the hon- 
est old Judge cannot strictly be called literature, their 
frank revelation of everyday life presents too excellent a 
background for the writings of others to be entirely for- 
gotten. 

9. Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758. In 1730 Judge 
Sewall died. In that year a young man of twenty-seven 
was preaching in Northampton who was to become fa- 
mous for his original, clear, and logical thought and his 
power to move an audience. He had been a wonder all 
the days of his life. When he ought to have been play- 
ing marbles, he was reading Greek and Latin and He- 
brew, He was deeply interested in natural philosophy, 
and even more deeply in theology. When he was four- 
teen, he read Locke's Essay on the Human Understand- 
mg-, and declared that it inexpressibly entertained and 
pleased him. 



1 703-1 758] 



THE COLONIAL PERIOD 



281 



Such was Jonathan Edwards. He was the greatest 
clergyman of the first half of the eighteenth century, and 
some have not feared to call him the "most original and 
acute thinker yet pro- 
duced in America." He 
was quite different from 
the earlier colonial pastors 
like Cotton Mather, men 
who were gazed upon by 
their flocks with wonder 
and humble reverence as 
recognized leaders in reli- 
gion, learning, and poli- 
tics. His time was de- 
voted to theology. After 
twenty-four years in 
Northampton he went to 
the little village of Stock- 
bridge and became a mis- 
sionary to the Indians. 
Then there was such poverty in the Edwards family that 
fresh, whole sheets of paper were a rare luxury, and the 
thoughts of the keenest mind in the land were jotted 
down on the backs of letters or the margins of pam- 
phlets. By and by these thoughts were pub- ^jj^ j j. 
lished in book form. This book was TJie In- ^y into the 
quiry into the Freedom of the Will. Then the the wiu,° 
modest missionary to the Indians became fa- ^^^*- 
mous among metaphysicians the world over, for in acute, 
powerful reasoning he had no superior. It is small wonder 
that Princeton hastened to send a messenger to the little 
village in the wilderness to offer him the presidency of 
the college. He accepted the offer, but died after only 
one month's service. 




JONATHAN EDWARDS 
1703-1758 



282 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1703-1758 

Unfortunately, the passage of Edwards's writings that 
is oftenest quoted is from his sermon on "Sinners in the 
hands of an angry God," wherein even his clearsighted- 
ness confuses God's pitying love for the sinner with his 
hatred of sin. More in harmony with Edwards's natural 
disposition is his simple, frank description of his boy- 
hood happiness when after many struggles he first began 
to realize the love of God. He wrote : — 

The appearance of everything was altered ; there seemed to be, 
as it were, a calm, sweet cast or appearance of divine glory in 
almost everything. God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and 
love, seemed to appear in everything: in the sun, moon, and stars; 
in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the 
water and all nature ; which used greatly to fix my mind. I often 
used to sit and view the moon for a long time ; and in the day 
spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet 
glory of God in these things : in the mean time, singing forth, with 
a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. 
And scarce anything, among all the works of nature, was so sweet 
to me as thunder and lightning; formerly nothing had been so 
terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with 
thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunder-storm 
rising ; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. I felt God, if I 
may so speak, at the first appearance of a thunder-storm; and used 
to take the opportunity, at such times, to fix myself in order to view 
the clouds, and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic and 
awful voice of God's thunder. 

10. Minor writers. Such was the literature of our 
colonial days. Few names can be mentioned, but there 
were scores of minor writers. There was Roger Wil- 
liams, that lover of peace and arouser of contention ; 
John Eliot, one of the three manufacturers of the Bay 
Psalm Book, whose Indian Bible is a part of literature, 
if not of American literature. There was the witty grum- 
bler, Nathaniel Ward, the " Simple Cobler of Agawam;" 
William Byrd, who described so graphically the dangers 



1765] THE COLONIAL PERIOD 283 

and difficulties of running a surveyor's line across the 
Dismal Swamp. There was John Woolman, the Quaker, 
so tender of conscience that he believed it wasteful and 
therefore wrong to injure the wearing qualities of cloth 
by coloring it ; and of such charming frankness that he 
confesses how uneasy he felt lest his fellow Friends 
should think he was "affecting singularity " in wearing 
a hat of the natural color of the fur. Some of the para- 
graphs of his journal might almost have come from the 
pen of Whittier, so full are they of the poet's sensitive- 
ness and shyness and his boldness in doing right. There 
were newspapers, the Boston Nezvs Letter the first of all. 
There were almanacs, the first appearing at Cambridge 
almost as soon as Harvard College was founded. 

The colonial days passed swiftly, and the time soon 
came when the country was aroused and thrilled by an 
event that changed the aim and purpose of all colonial 
writings. In 1765 the Stamp Act was passed ; and after 
that date, when men took their pens in hand, their com- 
positions did not belong to the Colonial Period ; for, 
consciously or unconsciously, they had entered into the 
second period of American literature, the literature of 
the Revolution. 

The Colonial Period 

1607-1765 

William Bradford The New Englaiid Primer 

John Winthrop Cotton Mather 

The Bay Psalm Book Samuel Sewall 

Michael Wigglesworth Jonathan Edwards 
Anne Bradstreet 

SUMMARY 

In the early part of the seventeenth century England was 
aglow with literary inspiration. American literature began in 



284 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1607-1765 

Massachusetts, in the histories written by Bradford and Win- 
throp. The Bay Psalm Book was the first book pubhshed in 
America. Much verse of good motive but small merit was 
written, the longest piece being Wigglesworth's Day of Doom. 
Anne Bradstreet wrote the best of the colonial verse. The 
only book for children was the New England Prhner. Cotton 
Mather was the last of the typical colonial ministers, Sewall's 
diary pictures colonial days. Edwards was the greatest 
preacher of the first half of the eighteenth century. He won 
world-wide fame as a metaphysician. Among the minor 
writers were Williams, Eliot, Ward, Byrd, and Woolman. The 
passage of the Stamp Act in 1765 marked the beginning of 
the second period of American literature, the literature of the 
Revolution. 



CHAPTER II 

THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 

1765-1815 

11. Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790. The Stamp Act 
was an electric shock to the colonists. They expected 
to be ruled for the benefit of the mother country, for 
that was the custom of the age ; but this Act they be- 
lieved to be illegal, and it aroused all their Anglo-Saxon 
wrath at injustice. There was small inclination now to 
write religious poems or histories of early days. Every 
one was talking about the present crisis. As time passed, 
orations and political writings flourished ; and satires and 
wzr songs had their place, followed by lengthy poems on 
the assured greatness and glory of America. 

At the first threat of a Stamp Act, Pennsylvania had 
sent one of her colonists to' England to prevent its pas- 
sage if possible. This emissary was Benjamin Franklin, 
a Boston boy who had run away to Philadelphia. There 
he had become printer and publisher, and was widely 
known as a shrewd, successful business man, full of pub- 
lic spirit. He spent in all nearjy eighteen years in Eng- 
land as agent of Pennsylvania and other colonies. On one 
of his visits home he signed the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. Almost immediately he was sent to France to 
secure French aid in our Revolutionary struggles. Then 
he returned to America, and spent the five years of life 
that remained to him in serving his country and the 
people about him in every way in his power. 



286 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [i 706-1 790 

Such a record as this is almost enough for one man's 
life, but it was only a part of Franklin s work. He spe- 
His versa- cialized in everything. His studies of electri- 
tiuty. city gained him honors from France and Eng- 

land. Harvard, Yale, Edinburgh, and Oxford gave him 




[790 

honorary degrees. He invented, among other things, the 
lightning-rod and the Franklin stove. He founded the 
Philadelphia Library, the University of Pennsylvania, 
and the American Philosophical Society. He it was 



I732-I757] THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 287 

who first suggested a union of colonies, and he was our 
first postmaster-general. Kis motto seems to have been, 
" I will do everything I can, and as well as I can." 

When he was a boy in Boston, he wrote a ballad about 
a recent shipwreck, which sold in large numbers. "Verse- 
makers are usually beggars," declared his father ; and 
the young poet wrote no more ballads, for he intended 
to " get on " in life. A little later, he came across an 
odd volume of TJie Spectator, and was delighted with its 
clear, agreeable style. " I will imitate that," he said to 
himself ; so he took notes of some of the papers, his literary 
rewrote the essays from these, and then com- ^™s- 
pared his work with his model. After much of this prac- 
tice, he concluded that he " might in time come to be a 
tolerable English writer." 

The hardworking young printer had but a modest lit- 
erary ambition, but it met with generous fulfilment ; 
for if he had done nothing else, he would have won fame 
by his writings. These consist in great part of essays 
on historical, political, commercial, scientific, religious, 
and moral subjects. He had studied The Spectator to 
good purpose, for he rarely wrote a sentence that was 
not strong and vigorous, and, above all, clear. Whoever 
reads a paragraph of Franklin's writing knows exactly 
what the author meant to say. His first liter- Poor Rich- 
ary glory came from neither poem nor essay, nac^i?^^- 
but from Poor Richai'd's Almanac, a pamphlet 1757. 
which he published every autumn for twenty-five years. 
It was full of shrewd, practical advice on becoming well-to- 
do and resjDected and getting as much as possible out of 
life. The special charm of the book was that this advice 
was put in the form of proverbs or pithy rhymes, every 
one with a snap as well as a moral. "Be slow in choos- 
ing a friend, slower in changing." " Honesty is the best 



288 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1725-1799 

policy." " Great talkers are little doers." " Better slip 
with foot than tongue." " Doors and walls are fools' 
. , ^. paper." Such was the tone of the famous lit- 

Autobio- ' i 

graphy, De- tie Alviauac. Another of his writings, and one 
gun 1771. ^1^^^ jg ^£ interest to-day, is his Autobiography, 
which he wrote when he was sixty-iive years of age. In 
it nothing is kept back; He tells us of his first arrival 
in Philadelphia, when he walked up Market Street, eat- 
ing a great roll and carrying another under each arm ; of 
his scheme for attaining moral perfection by cultivating 
one additional virtue each week, and of his surprise at find- 
ing himself more faulty than he had supposed ! The self- 
revelation of the author is so honest and frank that the 
book could hardly help being charming, even if it had 
been written about an uninteresting person; but written, 
as it was, about a man so learned, so practical, so shrewd, 
so full of kindly humor as Benjamin Franklin, it is one 
of the most fascinating books of the century. 

12. Revolutionary oratory. Franklin's Autobiogra- 
phy was never finished, perhaps because the Revolution 
was at hand and there was little time for reminiscences. 
The minds of men were full of the struggles of the pre- 
sent and the hopes of the future. Most of the oratory 
James Otis, of the time is lost. We can only imagine it 
1725-1783. from the chance words of appreciation of those 
who Hstened to it. There was Otis, whom John Adams 
called " a flame of fire." There was Richard Henry 
„, ^ ^ Lee, the quiet thinker who blazed into the elo- 

Rlcnara ^ 

Henry Lee, quencc of earnestness and sincerity, the man 
1732-1794. ^^^^ dared to move in Congress, "that these 
united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
Patrick '^^^ independent states." There was Patrick 
Henry, Henry, that other Virginian, who began to speak 
1736-1799. ^^ shyly and stumblingly that a listener fancied 



1736-1799] THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 289 

him to be some country minister a little taken aback at 
addressing such an assembly. But soon that assembly 




PATRICK HENRY MAKING HIS TARQUIN AND C^SAR SPEECH 

was thrilled with his ringing " I know not what course 
others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give 
me death ! " 

13. Political writings. Those writers who favored 
peace and submission to England are no longer remem- 



290 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1732-1826 

bered ; those who urged resistance even unto war will, in 
the success of that war, never be forgotten. Prominent 
Thomas among them was Thomas Paine, an English- 
Paine, man whom the wise Benjamin Franklin met in 

1.737-1809 

England and induced to go to America in 1774. 
Two years later he published the most famous of his 
writings. Common Sense. This pamphlet told why its 
author believed in a separation from the mother country. 
Its clear and logical arguments were a power in bringing 
on the war. And when the war had come, his Crisis 

gave renewed courage to many a disheartened 
Jefferson, patriot. Thomas Jefferson was the author not 
^ ^'^^ ' only of the Declaration of Independence, but of 
many strong pamphlets that aroused men's souls to the 
inevitable bloodshed. It was he who, only a few days 
after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, 
suggested the motto for the seal of the United States^ 
E pliiribus iinmn; and it is hard to see how a better one 
could have been found. George Washington would have 
George smiled gravely to see himself written down as 
ton^ma- °"^ °^ ^^^ lights of literature ; but his Farewell 
1799. Address, his letters, and his journals are not 

without literary value in their clearness and strength 
and dignity, in their noble expression of ennobling 
thoughts. 

At the close of the Revolution, the question of the 
hour was how the Republic should be organized and gov- 

-^ „ , erned. A number of political pamphlets had 
TheFeder- ^ r i 

aiist, been written during the war; and now such 

1788-1789. .^vj-itings became the main weapons of those 
into whose hands the formation of the Constitution had 
Alexander fallen. The bcst-know^n of these papers were 
Hamilton, written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and 
James Madison. They were collected and pub- 



1745-1836] THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 291 

lished as The Federalist in 1 788-1 789, the time when the 
country was hesitating to adopt the Constitu- johnjay, 
tion. Here is an example of the straightfor- 1745-1829. 
ward, dignified, self-respecting manner in which Madison, 
they laid before the young nation the advan- I75i-i838. 
tages of the proposed method of electing a President: — 

The process of the election affords a moral certainty that the 
office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not 
in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. 




MADISON JAY HAMILTON 

1751-1S36 i745->S29 1757-1804 

THE AUTHORS OF THE FEDERALIST 

Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone 
suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State ; but 
it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to estab- 
lish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so 
considerable a portion of it, as would be necessary to make him a 
successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the 
United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be 
a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre- 
eminent for ability and virtue. 

14. The " Hartford Wits." The poets of Revolution- 
ary times chose the same subject as the prose writers. The 
poem might be a ballad on some recent event of the war, 



292 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1752-1817 

a satire, or a golden vision of the greatness which, in the 
imagination of the poet, his country had already attained ; 
but in one form or another the theme was ever "Our 
Country." A piece of literary work that falls in with 
the spirit of the times wins a contemporary fame whose 
reflection often remains much longer than the quality of 
the work would warrant. Among the writers of such 
poetry were the "Hartford Wits," as they were called, 
a group of Connecticut authors whose principal members 
were Timothy Dwight, John Trumbull, and Joel Barlow. 
Timothy Dwight was a grandson — and a worthy one — 
of Jonathan Edwards. In 1777 he was studying law, 
Timoth ^"^ ^^^ patriotism, and perhaps his inherited 
Dwight, tastes, turned him into a minister ; for the 
''^ " ' * army needed chaplains. He was licensed to 
preach, and joined the Connecticut troops. Then it was 
Columbia ^^^^ ^^ wrote his Columbia, a patriotic song 
1777. which predicted in bold, swinging metre a mag- 

nificent future for the United States. He says : — 

As the day-spring unbounded, thy splendor shall flow, 
And earth's little kingdoms before thee shall bow : 
While the ensigns of union, in triumph unfurled, 
Hush the tumult of war and give peace to the world. 

He wrote an epic, called The Conquest of Canaa^i, 
The Con- which is long, dull, and forgotten. He left 
quest 0! many volumes and much manuscript ; but the 
1785. ' one piece of his work that has any real share 
in the life of to-day is his hymns, particularly his version 
of Psalm cxxxvii, beginning : — 

I love thy kingdom, Lord, 
The house of thine abode. 

John Trumbull's merry, good-natured face does not 
seem at all the proper physiognomy for a man who be- 



1750-1S31] THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 293 

gan life as an infant prodigy and ended it as a judge of 
the superior court. When he was five years old, j^^^ 
he listened to his father's lessons to a young Trumbuu, 
man who was preparing for college, and then 
said to his mother, " I 'm going to study Latin, too." 
The result was that when he was seven, he passed his 
entrance examinations for Yale, sitting upon a man's 
knee, so the tradition says, because he was too little to 
reach the table. He was taken home, however, MTingoi, 
and did not enter college until he was thirteen. 1775. 
He wrote the best satire of the Revolutionary days, 
M'Fingal. His hero is a Tory. 

From Boston in his best array- 
Great Squire M'Fingal took his way. 

The poem is a frank imitation of Hudibras, and, either 
luckily or unluckily for Trumbull's fame, some of his 
couplets are so good that they are often attributed to 
Butler. Among them are : — 

No man e'er felt the halter draw 
With good opinion of the law. 

But optics sharp it needs, I ween, 
To see what is not to be seen. 

The third of this group was Joel Barlow. In 1778 
he graduated from Yale. His part in the joei Bar- 
Commencement programme was a poem, TJic o^i'teb^ 
Prospect of Peace. He was well qualified to I812. 
write on such a subject, for he had had a fashion of 
slipping away to the army when his vacations came 
around, and doing a little fighting. Two years later, he 
followed the example of his friend Dwight, and became 
an army chaplain. After the war was over, he produced 



294 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1787-1832 

a poem, The Vision of Cobunbiis, afterwards expanded 
The vision ^^^^ ^^ ^pic, The Columbiad. People were 
oicoium- so carried away with its patriotism and its 
The coium- sonorous phrases that they forgot to be critical, 
biad, 1807. ^nd the poem made its author famous. He is 
remembered now, however, by a merry little rhyme 
which he wrote on being served with hasty pudding in 
t Savoy. He takes for the motto of his poem the 
Pudding, dignified Latin sentiment, " Omne tulit punc- 
^^*^" tum qui miscuit utile dulci," and translates it 

delightfully, "He makes a good breakfast who mixes pud- 
ding with molasses." He thus apostrophizes the deli- 
cacy : — 

Dear Hasty Pudding, what unpromised joy 
Expands my heart, to meet thee in Savoy ! 
Doom'd o'er the world through devious paths to roam, 
Each clime my country and each house my home, 
My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end, 
I greet my long-lost, unforgotten friend. 

Poor Barlow ! aspiring to a national epic and remem. 
bered by nothing but a rhyme on hasty pudding ! 

15. Philip Freneau, 1752-1832. In the midst of 
these writers of unwieldy and long-forgotten epics was 
one man in whom there abode a real poetic talent, Philip 
Freneau, born in New York. His early poems were 
satires and songs, often of small literary merit, indeed, 
but with a ring and a swing that made them almost sing 
themselves. The boys in the streets, as well as the sol- 
diers in the camps, must have enjoyed shouting : — 

When a certain great king, whose initial is G, 

Forces Stamps upon paper, and folks to drink Tea; 

When these folks burn his tea and stampt paper, like stubble — - 

You may guess that this king is then coming to trouble. 

When the war was over, verse that was neither epic. 



1786] THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 295 

war song, nor satire had a chance to win appreciation. 
Freneau then published, in 1786, a volume of poems, 
poems. In some of them there is a sincere 1786. 
poetic tenderness and delicacy of touch ; for instance, in 
his memorial to the soldiers who fell at Eutaw Springs, 
he says : — 

Stranger, their humble graves adorn ; 

You too may fall, and ask a tear ; 
'T is not the beauty of the morn 

That proves the evening shall be clear. 

The lyric music rings even more melodiously in his IVtVd 
Honeysuckle, which ends : — 

From morning suns and evening dews 

At first thy little being came ; 
If nothing once, you nothing lose. 
For when you die you are the same ; 
The space between is but an hour, 
The frail duration of a flower. 

This year 1786 was the one in which Burns published 
his first volume, and the year in which he wrote of his 
"Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower." Freneau was 
as free as Burns from the influence of Pope and his 
heroic couplet which had so dominated the poets of 
England for the greater part of the eighteenth century. 
He was no imitator ; and he had another of the distinc- 
tive marks of a true poet, — he could find the poetic 
where others found nothing but the prosaic. Before his 
time, the American Indian, for instance, had hardly ap- 
peared in literature ; Freneau was the first to see that 
there was something poetic in the pathos of a vanishing 
race. In all the rhyming of the two centuries immedi- 
ately preceding 1800, there is nothing that gave such 
hope for the future of American poetry as some of the 
poems of Philip Freneau. 



296 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1771-1810 

16. Charles Brockden Brown, 1771-1810. There was 
hope, too, for American prose, and in a new line, that of 
fiction ; for the Philadelphia writer, Charles Brockden 
wieiand, Brown, published in 1798 a novel entitled IVte- 
^^^*' /an(/. It is full of mysterious voices, murders, 

and threatened murders, whose cause and explanation 
prove to be the power of a ventriloquist. The book was 
called " thrilling and exciting in the highest degree ; " 
but the twentieth-century reader cannot help wonder- 
ing why the afflicted family did not investigate matters 
and why the tormented heroine did not get a watch-dog. 
Then, too, comes the thought of what the genius of Poe 
could have done with such material. Nevertheless, there 
is undeniable talent in the book, and unmistakable pro- 
mise for the future. Some of the scenes, especially the 
last meeting between the heroine and her half-maniac 
brother, are powerfully drawn. Brown published several 
Arthur Other novels, one of which, Arthur Mci^vyn^ 
Mervyn, is valued for its vivid descriptions of a visita- 
tion of the yellow fever to Philadelphia. Like 
Freneau, Brown saw in the Indian good material for 
literature ; but to him the red man was neither pathetic 
nor romantic, — he was simply a terrible danger of the 
western wilderness. 

During the fifty years of the Revolutionary period, the 
literary spirit had first manifested itself in the prac- 
tical, utilitarian prose of Franklin and the writers of 
The Federalist and other political pamphlets ; then in 
the patriotic satires and epics of the Hartford Wits. 
Finally, in the work of both Freneau and Brown there 
was manifest a looking forward to literature for litera- 
ture's sake, to a poetry that dreamed of the beautiful, to 
a prose that reached out toward the imaginative and the 
creative. 



1765-1815] THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 297 

The Revolutionary Period 

1765-1815 

Benjamin Franklin Timothy Dwight 

Thomas Paine John Trumbull 

Thomas Jefferson Joel Barlow 

George Washington Phihp Freneau 

The Federalist Charles Brockden Brown 

SUMMARY 

The passage of the Stamp Act turned the literary activity 
of the colonists from history and religious poetry toward or- 
atory, political writings, satire, war songs, and patriotic poems. 
Franklin was the most versatile man of his times. His work 
in politics, science, and literature deserved the honor which 
it received. His most popular publication was Poor Richard' s 
Almanac. His work of most interest to-day is his Autobio- 
graphy. The leading orators were Otis, Lee, and Henry. 
Some of the political writers were Paine, Jefferson, and Wash- 
ington. The Federalist coxii^S.^?, many political essays by Ham- 
ilton, Jay, and Madison. Among the " Hartford Wits " were 
Dwight, the author of The Conquest of Canaan, but best known 
by his hymns; Trumbull, whose Af'Tinga/ was the best satire 
of the Revolution ; and Barlow, who wrote an epic. The Co- 
lumbiad, but is best known by his rhyme, The Hasty Pud- 
ding. Freneau wrote poems that rank him above all other 
poets of the period. Brown's Wiela?id was the forerunner of 
the nineteenth-century novel. 



CHAPTER III 

THE NATIONAL PERIOD, 1816 — 

I. EARLIER YEARS, 1815-1865 
A. THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 

17. National progress. The last fifteen years of the 
Revolutionary period, from 1800 to 181 5, were marked 
by great events in America. New States were admitted 
to the Union ; the Louisiana Purchase made the United 
States twice as large as before ; the expedition of Lewis 
and Clark revealed the wonders and possibilities of the 
West ; Fulton's invention of the steamboat brought 
the different parts of the country nearer together ; the 
successes of the War of 18 12, particularly the naval 
victories, increased the republic's self-respect and sense 
of independence. This feeling was no whit lessened by 
the conquest of the Barbary pirates, to whom for three 
hundred years other Christian nations had been forced 
to pay tribute. Just as the great events of the sixteenth 
century aroused and inspired the Elizabethans, so the 
growth of the country, the victories, discoveries, and 
inventions of the first years of the nineteenth century 
aroused and inspired the Americans. There was rapid 
progress in all directions, and no slender part in this 
progress fell to the share of literature. 

18. The Knickerbocker School. During the Revo- 
lutionary period the literary centre had gradually moved 
from Massachusetts to Philadelphia. When the nine- 
teenth century began, a boy of seventeen was just leaving 
school whose talents were to do much to make New 
York, his birthplace and home, a literary centre. More- 



1783-1859] THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 299 

over, the name of one of his characters, Diedrich Knick- 
erbocker, has become a Hterary term ; for just as three 
English authors have been classed together as the Lake 
Poets because they chanced to live in the Lake Country, 




WASHINGTON IRVING 
1783-1859 

SO the term Knickerbocker School has been found con- 
venient to apply to Irving, Cooper, Bryant, and the lesser 
writers who were at that time more or less connected 
with New York. 

19. Washington Irving, 1783-1859. This boy of sev- 
enteen was Washington Irving. He first distinguished 
himself by roaming about in the city and neighboring 
villages, while the town crier rang his bell and cried in- 



300 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1807-1809 

dustriously, " Child lost ! Child lost ! " After leaving 
school, he studied law; but he must have rejoiced when 
his family decided that the best way to improve his 
somewhat feeble health was to send him to Europe, far 
more of a journey in 1800 than a trip around the world 
in 1900. He wandered through France, Italy, and Eng- 
land, and enjoyed himself everywhere. When he re- 
turned to New York, nearly two years later, he was ad- 
mitted to the bar ; but he spent all his leisure hours on 
literature. TJie Spectator had the same attraction for 
him that it had had for Franklin. When he was nine- 
teen, he had written a few essays in a somewhat similar 
Saima- Style ; and now he set to work with his brother 
gundi, William and a friend, James K. Paulding, to 

publish a Spectator of their own. They named 
it Salmagundi, and in the first number they calmly 
announced : — 

Our purpose is simply to instruct the young, reform the old, 
correct the town, and castigate the age ; this is an arduous task, 
and therefore we undertake it with confidence. 

The twenty numbers of this paper that appeared were 
bright, merry, and good-natured. Their wit had no 
sting, and they became popular in New York. The 
law practice must have suffered some neglect, for Ir- 
ving had another plan in his mind. One day a notice 
appeared in the Evening Post under the head of " Dis- 
tressing." It spoke of the disappearance of one Die- 
drich Knickerbocker. Other notices followed. One said, 
" A very curious kind of a written book has been found 
Knickw- ^ri his room in his own handwriting." The way 

booker's was thus prepared, and soon Knickerbocker s 
History ol ^,. ^,rTrr 1 , t 

New York, History of New York was on the market. It was 

^®°^ the most fascinating mingling of fun and sober 

history that can be conceived of, and was mischievously 



1S19-1820] THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 301 

dedicated to the New York Historical Society. Every- 
body read it, and everybody laughed. Even the some- 
what aggrieved descendants of the Dutch colonists 
managed to smile politely. 

Knickerbocker s History brought its author three thou- 
sand dollars. His talent was recognized on both sides of 
the Atlantic, but for ten years he wrote nothing more. 
Finally he went to England in behalf of the business in 
which he and his brother had engaged. The business was 
a failure, but still he lingered in London. A government 
position in Washington was offered him, but he refused 
it. Then his friends lost all patience. He had but 
slender means, he was thirty-five years old, and if he was 
ever to do any literary work, it was time that he made 
a beginning. Irving felt " cast down, blighted, and 
broken-spirited," as he said ; but he roused himself to 
work, and soon he began to send manuscript to a New 
York publisher, to be brought out in numbers under the 
signature " Geoffrey Crayon." His friends no longer 
wished that he had taken the government position, for 
this work, the Sketch Book, was a glowing sue- ,pjjg gj^etcii 
cess. Everybody liked it, and with good reason. Book, 

c lu Ji4-uiir 1819-1820. 

for among the essays and sketches, all of rare 
merit, were Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy 
Hollow. Praises were showered upon the author until 
he felt, as he wrote to a friend, " almost appalled by such 
success." Walter Scott, " that golden-hearted man," 
as Irving called him, brought about the publication of 
the book in England by Murray's famous publishing 
house. Its success there was as marked as in America, 
for at last a book had come from the New World that 
no one could refuse to accept as literature. The Amer- 
icans had not forgotten the sneer of the English critic, 
*' Who reads an American book } " and they gloried in 



302 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1822-1859 

their countryman's glory. The sale was so great that 

the publisher honorably presented the author with more 

than a thousand dollars beyond the amount that had 

been agreed upon. 

An enthusiastic welcome awaited Irving whenever he 

chose to cross the Atlantic, but he still lin- 
Brace- ' 

bridgeHaii, gered in Europe. In the next few years he 

Tafesofa published Bracebridge Hall and Tales of a 

Traveller, Traveller. The latter was not very warmly 

received, for the public were clamoring for 

something new. Just as serenely as Scott had turned 

Life of Co- to fiction when people were tired of his poetry, 

iMsl^^he ^° Irving turned to history and biography. He 

Conquest of spent three years in Spain, and the result of 

1829. The those years was his Life of Colnvibus, The Con- 

Compan- qiicst of Granada, The Coinpaiiioiis of Colnin- 
lons ol ^ -^ -' ^ 

Columbus, bus, and, last and most charming of all, The 



A I ham bra. 



1831. The 
Alhamhra, 

1832. Irving had now not only fame but an assured 
income. He returned to America, and there he found 
himself the man whom his country most delighted to 
honor. Once more he left her shores, to become min- 
ister to Spain for four years ; but, save for that absence, 
he spent the last twenty-seven years of his life in his 
charming cottage, Sunnyside, on the Hudson near Tar- 
rytown. He was not idle by any means. Among his 
Life of later works are his Life of Goldsmith and Life 
Goldsmith, 0f Washino-ton. In these biographies he had 

1849. -^ ^ . 

Life Of two aims : to write truly and to write interest- 
to"i8M- ^^^S^y- -^'s style is always clear, marked by 
1859. exquisite gleams of humor, and so polished that 

a word can rarely be changed without spoiling the sen- 
tence. To this charm of style he adds in the case of his 
Life of Goldsmith such an atmosphere of friendliness, of 



1789-1851] THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 303 

comradeship, of perfect sympathy, that one has to recall 
dates in order to realize that the two men were not com- 
panions. No man's last years were ever more full of 




honors than Irving's. The whole country loved him. 
As Thackeray said, his gate was " forever swinging be- 
fore visitors who came to him." Every one was wel- 
comed, and every one carried away kindly thoughts of 
the magician of the Hudson. 

20. James Fenimore Cooper, 1789-1851. About 
the time that the New York town crier was finding 
Irving's wanderings a source of income, a year-old baby, 
named James Fenimore Cooper, was taking a much 
longer journey. He travelled from his birthplace in 
Burlington, New Jersey, to what is now Cooperstown, 
New York, where his father owned several thousand 
acres of land and proposed to establish a village. The 
village was established, a handsome residence was built, 
and there, in the very heart of the wilderness, the boy 



304 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1789-1851 

spent his early years. He was used to the free life of 
the forest ; and it is small wonder that after he entered 
Yale, he found it rather difficult to obey orders and was 
sent home in disgrace. 

His next step was to spend four years at sea. Then 
he married, left the navy, and became a country gentle- 
man, with no more thought of writing novels than many 




JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 
1789-1851 



Other country gentlemen. One day, after reading a story 
of English life, he exclaimed, " I believe I could write a 
better book myself." " Try it, then," retorted his wife 
playfully ; and he tried it. The result was Precaution. 



1820-1839] THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 305 

Unless the English novel was very poor, this book can 
hardly have been much of an improvement, for procauUon, 
it is decidedly dull. Another fault is its lack ^^^o. 
of truth to life, for Cooper laid his scene in England in 
the midst of society that he knew nothing about. The 
book was anonymous. It was reprinted in England 
and was thought by some critics to be the work of an 
English writer. Americans of that day were so used 
to looking across the ocean for their literature that this 
mistake gave Cooper courage. Moreover, his friends 
stood by him generously. " Write another," they said, 
"and lay the scene in America." Cooper took up his 
pen again. The Spy vj3.s the result. Irving's The spy, 
Sketch Book had come out only a year or two ■'•®2^- 
earlier, and now American critics were indeed jubilant. 
A novel whose scene was laid in America and during the 
American Revolution had been written by an ^jj^pj^. 
American and was a success in England. The neers, The 
bolder spirits began to whisper that American ^"°*' "^3. 
J/iterature had really begun. Two years later, Cooper 
J»ublished The Pioneers, whose scene is laid in the for- 
est, and also The Pilot, a sea tale. 

There was little waiting for recognition. On both 
sides of the ocean his fame increased. He kept on writ- 
ing, and his eager audience kept on reading and begged 
for more. His books were translated into French, Ger- 
man, Norwegian, even into Arabic and Persian. Among 
them was his History of the United States Navy, History oi 
which is still an authority. Some of his books sute""** 
were very go«od, others were exceedingly poor. Kavy.isas. 
The Leathcrstocking Tales are his best work. The 
best character is Natty Bumppo, or Leathcrstocking, 
the hunter and scout, whose achievements are traced 
through the five volumes of the series. 



306 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1789-1851 

Cooper spent several years abroad. When he re- 
turned, he found that the good folk of Cooperstown had 
Cooper and '^^S been using a piece of his land as a pleasure 
the courts ground. Cooper called them trespassers, and 
the courts agreed with him. The matter would have 
ended there had it not been a bad habit of Cooper's to 
criticise things and people as boldly as if he were the 
one person whose actions were above criticism. Of 
course he had not spared the newspapers, and now they 
did not spare him. He sued them for libel again and 
again. In one suit of this kind, the court had to hear 
his two-volume novel. Home as Found, read aloud in 
order to decide whether the criticisms in question were 
libellous or not. He often won his suits, but he lost far 
more than he gained ; for, while Irving was loved by the 
whole country, Cooper made new enemies every day. 
Before his death he pledged his family to give no sight 
of his papers and no details of his home life to any future 
biographer who might ask for them. This is unfortunate, 
for Cooper was a man who always turned his rough 
side to the world ; but at least we can fall back upon 
the knowledge that the people who knew him best loved 
him most. 

Cooper's success was so immediate that he hardly 
realized the need of any thought or special preparation for 

a book ; therefore he wrote carelessly, often 
Cooper's ' . . ■> 

carelessness with most shiftless inattention to styfe or plot 
In writing. ^^ consistency. Mark Twain is scarcely more 
than just when he declares that the rules governing lit- 
erary art require that " when a personage talks like an 
illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar 
Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, 
he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it. 
But this rule is flung down and danced upon in the 



i794-i8o8] THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 307 

Deerslayer\.2\.Q,!' On the other hand, something must 
be pardoned to rapid composition, to the wish for an 
effect rather than accuracy of detail ; and it is at best a 
most ungrateful task to pour out harsh criticism upon 
the man who has given us so many hours of downright 
pleasure, who has added to our literature two or three 
original characters, and who has brought into our libra- 
ries the salt breeze of the ocean and the rustling of the 
leaves of the forest. 

21. William Cullen Bryant, 1794-1878. America 
had now produced a writer of exquisite prose and a nov- 
elist of recognized ability, but had she a poet .'' The 
answer to this question lay in the portfolio of a young 
man of hardly eighteen years, who was named William 
Cullen Bryant. 

He was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, the son 
of a country doctor. He was brought up almost as 
strictly as if he had been born in Plymouth a century 
and a half earlier. Still, there was much to enjoy in 
the quiet village life. There were occasional huskings, 
barn-raisings, and maple-sugar parties ; there were the 
woods and the fields and the brooks and the flowers. 
There were books, and there was a father who loved them. 
There was little money to spare in the simple country 
home, but good books had a habit of finding their way 
thither, and the boy was encouraged to read 
poetry and to write it. Some of this encourage- Embargo, 
ment was perhaps hardly wise ; for when he pro- °^' 
duced a satirical poem, TJic Embargo, the father straight- 
way had it put into print. 

When Bryant was sixteen, he entered Williams Col- 
lege as a sophomore. His reputation went before him, 
and it was whispered among the boys, " He has written 
poetry and some of it has been printed." His college 



308 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1811-1818 

course was short, for the money gave out. The boy was 
much disappointed, but he went home quietly and began 
to study law. He did not forget poetry, however, and 
Thanatop- ^^^" ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ Thanatopsis, the poem in the 
sis written, portfolio, was written. Six years later, Dr. 

1811 ; pub- 

iished, Bryant came upon it by accident and recognized 

'^^^'^- its greatness at a glance. Without a word to 

his son, the proud father set out for Boston and left 
the manuscript at the rooms of the North American 
Revieiv, which had recently been established. Tradi- 
tion says that the editor who read it dropped the work 
in hand and hurried away to Cambridge to show his 
colleagues what a "find" he had made; and that one 
of them, Richard Henry Dana, declared there was some 
fraud in the matter, for no one in America could write 
such verse. The least appreciative reader of the poem 
could hardly help feeling the solemn majesty, the organ- 
tone rhythm, the wide sweep of noble thought. Thana- 
topsis is a masterpiece. It went the country over ; and 
wherever it went, even in its earlier and less perfect 
form, it was welcomed as America's first great poem. 
Meanwhile, its author was practising as a lawyer in a 
little Massachusetts village. He was working conscien- 
tiously at his profession ; but fortunately he was not so 
fully employed as to have no spare hours for poetry, and 
it was about this time that he wrote his beautiful lines, 
To a Water- To a Watevfozvl. This poem came straight 
lowi, 1818 fj-Q^-, |-,jg Q^j-j i-ieart, for he was troubled about 
his future, and, as he said, felt "very forlorn and deso- 
late." The last stanza, — 

He who, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone. 

Will lead my steps aright,— 



1821-1878] THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 309 

gave to him the comfort that it has given to many others, 
and he went on bravely, 

Dana soon brought it about that Bryant should be in- 
vited to read the annual poem before the Phi Beta Kappa 
Society at Harvard. The poem which he pre- The Ages, 
sented was The Ages. This, together with "21. 
Thaiiatopsis, To a Waterfowl, and four other poems, was 
published in a slender little volume, in 1821. 

Bryant was recognized as the first poet in the land, 
but even poets must buy bread and butter. Thus far, 
his poems had brought him a vast amount of praise and 
about two dollars apiece, and his law business had never 
given him a sufficient income. In 1825 he decided to 
accept a literary position that was offered him in New 
York. He soon became editor of The Evening Post, and 
this position he held for nearly fifty years. As an editor, 
he was absolutely independent, but always dignified and 
calm ; and he held his paper to a high literary standard. 
It was during those years that he wrote The Fringed 
Gentimi, The Antiquity of Fi'eedom, The Flood of Years , 
and other poems that our literature could ill afford to 
lose. He said that he had little choice among his poems. 
Irving liked The Rivtdet ; Halleck, The Apple Tree ; 
Dana, The Past. Bryant also translated the Iliad and 
the Odyssey. His life extended long after the lives of 
Irving and of Cooper had closed. Other poets had arisen 
in the land. They wrote on many themes ; he wrote on 
few save death and nature. Their verses were often 
more warm-hearted, more passionate than Bryant's, and 
often they were easier reading ; but Bryant never lost the 
place of honor and dignity that he had so fairly earned. 
He is the Father of American Poetry ; and it is well for 
American poetry that it can look back to the calmness 
and strength and poise of such a founder. Lowell says : — 



310 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1790-1820 

He is almost the one of your poets that knows 

How much grace, strength, and dignity lie in Repose. 

22. The minor Knickerbocker poets. Among the 
crowd of minor poets of the Knickerbocker School were 
Fitz-Greene Halleck, Drake, and WilHs. Fitz-Greene Hal- 
Haiieok, leck was a Connecticut boy who went to New 

York when he was twenty-one years old. He 
found work in the counting-room of John Jacob Astor. 
He also found a poet friend in a young man named 
josephRod- Joseph Rodman Drake. Together they wrote 
f^,^\^aon The Croakers, satirical poems on the New York 
The Croak- of the day. These are rather bright and witty, 
ers, 1819. i^^^j. j^ jg \y2ccdi to realize that they won intense 
admiration. The story has been handed down that 
when the editor of the paper in which they appeared 
first met his unknown contributors, he exclaimed with 
enthusiasm, " I had no idea that we had such talent in 
America." It was from the friendship between Halleck 
and Drake that Drake's best known poem arose, TJie 
The Culprit Ciclprit Fay. If we may trust the tradition, 
Fay, 1816. the two pocts, together with Cooper, were one 
day talking of America. Halleck and Cooper declared 
that it was impossible to find the poetry in American 
rivers that had been found in Scottish streams, but 
Drake took the contrary side. " I will prove it," he said 
to himself ; and within the next three days he produced 
his Culprit Fay, as dainty a bit of slight, graceful, imagi- 
native verse as can be found. The scene is laid in Fairy- 
land, and Fairyland is somewhere among the Highlands 
of the Hudson. The fairy hero loves a beautiful mortal, 

and, as a punishment, is doomed to penances 

The Ameri- ^ 

can Flag, that give room for many poetic fancies and deli- 
"^®^®" cate pictures. Drake died only four years later. 

He left behind him at least one other poem, first published 



1806-1867] THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 311 

in The Croakers, that will hardly be forgotten, The Amer- 
ican Flag, with its noble beginning: — 

When Freedom from her mountain height 
Unfurled her standard to the air. 

Halleck sorrowed deeply for the death of his friend. 
He himself lived for nearly half a century longer and 
wrote many poems, but nothing else as good as his lov- 
ing tribute to Drake, which begins : — 

Green be the turf above thee, 

Friend of my better days ! 
None knew thee but to love thee, 

Nor named thee but to praise ! 

One other poem of Halleck's, Marco Bozzaris, has always 
been a favorite because of its vigor and spirit. Marco boz- 
Bryant said, " The reading of Marco Bozzaris ^^"^' ^^25. 
, . . stirs up my blood like the sound of martial music 
or the blast of a trumpet." Parts of it bring to mind 
the demand of King Olaf for a poem " with a sword in 
every line." Worn as these verses are by much de- 
claiming, there is still a good old martial ring in such 
lines as : — 

Strike — till the last armed foe expires ; 

Strike — for your altars and your fires ; 

Strike — for the green graves of your sires; 
God and your native land. 

At the end of this rousing war-cry are two lines that are 
as familiar as anything in the language : — 

One of the few, the immortal names 
That were not born to die. 

Another member of the Knickerbocker School was 
Nathaniel Parker Willis, a Maine boy who found Nathaniel 
his way to New York. He had hardly un- ^Jj*/ 
packed his trunk before it was decided that I8O6-1867. 
if he would go to Europe and send home a weekly 



312 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1835-1867 

letter for publication, it would be greatly to the ad- 
vantage of the journal with which he was connected. 
Europe was still so distant as to make letters 

Pencllllngs r ■, • ■ ^^ 

by the Way, of travel interesting. These sketches, after- 
1835°"' wards published as Pencillings by the Way, 
America, were light and graceful, and they were copied 
by scores of papers. When Willis came home, 
five years later, he edited the Home yo7irnal, wrote 
pretty, imaginative sketches and many poems. There 
was nothing deep or thoughtful in them, rarely anything 
strong ; but they were easily and gracefully written and 
people liked to read them. A few of the poems, such 
as TJie Belfry Pigeon, Unseen Spirits, Saturday After- 
noon, and ParrJiasins, are still favorites. 

While in college, Willis wrote a number of sacred 
poems. Lowell wickedly said of them, " Nobody likes 
Sacred inspiration and water." But Lowell was wrong, 
poems. for they found a large audience, and their 
author tasted all the sweets of popularity. He was not 
spoiled, however, and he was, as Halleck said, " one of 
the kindest of men." His own path to literary success 
had been smooth, but he was always ready to sympathize 
with the struggles of others and to aid them by every 
means in his power. He died in 1867 ; but many years 
before his death it was evident that the literary leader- 
ship had again fallen into the hands of New England. 

A. The Knickerbocker School 
Washington Irving Fitz-Greene Halleck 

James Fenimore Cooper Joseph Rodman Drake 

William Cullen Bryant Nathaniel Parker Willis 

SUMMARY 
The progress of the country during the early years of the 
century inspired progress in literature. The literary centre 



1815-1865] THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 313 

had moved from Massachusetts to Philadelphia, but now New 
York began to hold the place of honor. The authors be- 
longing to the Knickerbocker School are Irving, Cooper, and 
Bryant, with the minor poets, Halleck, Drake, and Willis. 
Knickerbocker' s History of New York made Irving somewhat 
known on both sides of the ocean, but his Sketch Book was 
the first American book to win a European reputation. He 
afterwards wrote much history and biography. Cooper at- 
tempted first an English novel, then wrote The Spy\ which 
made him famous in both England and America. He wrote 
many other tales of the forest and the ocean. He was pop- 
ular as a novelist, but unpopular as a man. The third great 
writer of the Knickerbocker School was Bryant. He wrote 
his masterpiece, Thatiatopsis, before he was eighteen. His 
early poems were highly praised, but brought him little money. 
He was editor of The Evening Post for nearly fifty years, 
wrote many poems, and translated the I/iad and the Odyssey. 
He was the Father of American Poetry. Among the minor 
Knickerbocker Poets were Halleck, Drake, and Willis. Long 
before the death of Willis, it was evident that the literary 
centre was again to be found in New England. 



- CHAPTER IV 

THE NATIONAL PERIOD, 1815 — 

I. EARLIER YEARS, 1815-1865 
B. THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS 

23. The Transcendentalists. Before the year 1840 
had arrived, a remarkable group of writers of New Eng- 
land ancestry and birth had begun their work. They 
were fortunate in more than one way. They had the in- 
spiration of knowing that good literature had already 
been written in America ; and they had the stimulus 
arising from a movement, or manner of thought, known 
as transcendentalism. This movement began in Gen 
many, was felt first in England and then in America, in- 
troduced by the works of Caiiyle and Coleridge. Three 
of its " notes " were: (i) There are ideas in the human 
mind that were "born there" and were not acquired 
by experience ; (2) Thought is the only reality ; (3) 
Every one must do his own thinking. The Transcen- 
dental Club was formed, and the new movement had its 
literary organ, TJie Dial, whose first editor was the bril- 
liant Margaret Fuller. It had also its representatives 
in the pulpit, for the persuasive charm of William El- 
lery Channing and the impassioned eloquence of Theo- 
dore Parker were employed to proclaim the new gospel. 
Another advocate was Amos Bronson Alcott, gentle, 
visionary, and immovable, who is so well pictured in the 
opening chapters of his daughter's Little Women. 

The first thrill of all new movements leads to extremes, 
and transcendentalism was no exception. Freedom ! Re- 



I799-I90I] THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS 315 

form ! was the war-cry ; and to those who were inclined 
to act first and think afterwards, the new im- influence 
pulse was merely an incitement to tear down the scenden- 
fences. There were wild projects and fantastic taiism. 
schemes innumerable. A sense of humor would have 
guided and controlled much of this unbalanced enthusi- 
asm ; but it is only great men like Lincoln who can see 
any fellowship between humor and earnestness. The 
very people who were to profit by this movement were 




CHANNING PARKER 

I7S0-1842 1S1O-1S60 

THREE TRANSCENDENTALISTS 

the loudest laughers at these dreamers who gazed in 
rapture upon the planets and sometimes stubbed their 
toes against the pebbles. Nevertheless, the ripened fruits 
of transcendentalism were in their degree like those of 
the Renaissance ; it widened the horizon and it inspired 
men with courage to think for themselves and to live 
their own lives. This atmosphere of freedom had a 
noble effect upon literature. Two of the authors of the 
New England group, the poet-philosopher Emerson and 
the poet-naturalist Thoreau, were so imbued with its spirit 
that in literary classifications they are usually ranked as 



3l6 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1803-1882 

the transcendentalists ; and Hawthorne is often classed 
with them, partly by virtue of a few months' connection 
with a transcendental scheme, and even more because 
in his romances the thought and the spirit are so much 
more real than the deeds by which they are manifested 
and symbolized. 

24. Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882. The poet- 
philosopher was one of five boys who lived with their 
widowed mother in Boston. They were poor, for clergy- 
men do not amass fortunes, and their father had been 
no exception to the rule. The famous First Church, 
however, of which he had been in charge, did not forget 
the family of their beloved minister. Now and then 
other kind friends gave a bit of help. Once a cow was 
lent them, and every morning the boys drove her down 
Beacon Hill to pasture. In spite of their poverty it 
never entered the mind of any member of the family 
that the children could grow up without an education. 
Four of the boys graduated at Harvard. The oldest son, 
who was then a sedate gentleman of twenty, opened a 
school for young ladies ; and his brother Ralph, two 
years younger, became his assistant. The evenings were 
free, and the young man of eighteen was even then jot- 
ting down the thoughts that he was to use many years 
later in his essay, Cotnpensation. He was a descendant 
Enters the of eight generations of ministers, and there 
ministry. seems to have been in his mind hardly a 
thought of entering any other profession than the min- 
istry. A minister he became ; but a few years later he 
told his congregation frankly that his belief differed on 
one or two points from theirs and it seemed to him best 
to resign. They urged him to remain with them, but he 
did not think it wise to do so. 

A year later he went to Europe for his health. He 



l837] THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS 317 

wanted to see three or four men rather than places, he 
said. He met Coleridge and Wordsworth ; and Friendship 
then he sought out tlie lonely little farm of "with 
Craigenputtock, the home of Carlyle. His 
coming was " like the visit of an angel," said the Scotch 
philosopher to Longfellow. The two men became friends, 
and the friendship lasted as long as their lives. 

When Emerson came back to America, he made his 
home in Concord, Massachusetts, but for a long while he 
was almost as much at home on railroad trains and in 
stages. Those were the times when people were eager to 
hear from the lecture platform what the best thinkers of 
the day could tell them. In 1837 Emerson delivered at 
Harvard his Phi Beta Kappa address entitled TheAmeri- 
Tlie American Scholar ; and then for the first gg^oiar 
time the American people were told seriously i837. 
and with dignity that they must no longer listen to "the 
courtly muses of Europe." "We will walk on our own 
feet ; we will work with our own hands ; we will speak 
our own minds," said Emerson. These last words were 
the keynote of his message to the world. Whoever 
listens may hear the voice of God, he declared ; and for 
that reason each person's individuality was sacred to 
him. Therefore it was that he met every man with a 
gently expectant deference that was far above the ordi- 
nary courtesy of society. A humble working woman 
once said that she did not understand his lectures, but 
she liked to go to them and see him look as if he thought 
everybody else just as good as he. On the lecture 
platform Emerson's manner was that of one who was 
trying to interpret what had been told to him, of one 
who was striving to put his thoughts into a language 
which had no words to express them fully. 

Some parts of Emerson's writings are simple enough 



3l8 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1817-1862 

for a little child to understand ; other parts perhaps no 
Literary °"^ ^"^ their author has full)' comprehended, 
style. It is not easy to make an outline of his essays. 

Every sentence, instead of opening the gate for the next, 
as in Macaulay's prose, seems to stand alone. Emerson 
said with truth, " I build my house of boulders." The 
connection is not in the words, but in a subtle under- 
current of thought. The best way to enjoy his writings 
is to turn the pages of some one of his simpler essays, 
How to Compensation, for instance, that he planned 
enioy when a young man of eighteen, and read what- 

Bmerson. ^^^^ strikes the eye. When one has read : 
" ' What will you have .-' ' quoth God ; ' pay for it and 
take it,'" — "The borrower runs in his own debt," — 
"The thief steals from himself," — "A great man is 
always willing to be little ; " — when one has read a few 
such sentences, he cannot help wishing to begin at the 
beginning to see how they come in. Then let him take 
from each essay that he reads the part that belongs to 
him, and leave the rest until its day and moment have 
fully come. 

Among Emerson's poems, EacJi and All, The Rho- 
dora, The Humble- Bee, The Snow- St ami. Forbearance, 
Emerson's Woodnotes, Fable (" The mountain and the squir- 
poems. rel "), Concord Hymn, and Boston Hymn are all 
easy and all well worth knowing by heart. He who has 
learned this handful of poems has met their author face 
to face, and can hardly fail to have gained a friendliness 
for him that will serve as his best interpreter. 

25. Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862. In that 
same village of Concord was a young man named 
Thoreau who was a great puzzle to his neighbors. He 
had graduated at Harvard, but he did not become clergy- 
man, lawyer, or physician. He taught for a while, he 



1817-1862] THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS 3^9 

wrote and sometimes he lectured ; he read many books ; 
and he spent a great deal of time out of doors. His 
father was a maker of lead pencils, and the son also 
learned the trade. Before 
long he made them bet- 
ter than the father ; then 
he made them equal to 
the best that were im- 
ported. " There is a for- 
tune for you in those pen- 
cils," declared his friends ; 
but the young man made 
no more. "Why should 
I. -•" he queried. " I would 
not do again what I have 
done once." 

Thoreau loved his fam- 
ily, little children, and a 
few good friends ; but not 
a straw did he care about 
people in the mass. Em- 
erson said of him that his soul was made for the noblest 
society; but when he was about twenty-eight, he built 
himself a tiny cottage on the shore of Walden 
Pond, and there he lived for the greater part of waiden 
two years and a half. He kept a journal, and ^°^^' 
in this he noted when the first bluebird appeared, how 
the little twigs changed in color at the coming of the 
spring, and many other "common sights." He knew 
every nook and cranny of the rocks, every bend of the 
stream, every curve of the shore. The little wild crea- 
tures had no fear of him ; the red squirrels played a,;out 
his feet as he wrote ; the flowers seemed to hasten their 
blooming to meet the dates of his last year's diary. He 




HENRY DAVID THOREAU 

1S17-1862 



320 AMERICA'S LITERATURE ^1839 

told Emerson that if he waked up from a trance in his 
favorite swamp, he could tell by the plants what time 
of year it was within two days. He could find his way 
through the woods at night by the feeling of the ground 
to his feet. He saw everything around him. " Where 
can arrowheads be found ? " he was asked. " Here," 
was his reply, as he stooped and picked one up. It is no 
wonder that he felt small patience with the blindness of 
other folk. " I have never yet met a man who was quite 
awake," he declared. He loved trees, and once, when 
the woodchoppers had done their worst, he exclaimed 
devoutly, " Thank God, they cannot cut down the 
clouds." 

He found so much to enjoy that he could not bear to 
give his time to any profession. To be free, to read, 
and to live with nature, — that was happiness. " A man 
is rich in proportion to the number of things which he 
can afford to let alone," declared this philosopher of the 
wilderness. The few things that he could not "let 
alone," he supplied easily by the work of his hands. 
Emerson said that he himself could split a shingle four 
ways with one nail ; but Thoreau could make a bookcase 
or a chest or a table or almost anything else. He knew 
more about gardening than any of the farmers around 
him. Six weeks of work as carpenter or surveyor sup- 
plied his needs for the rest of the year ; then he was 
free. 

In 1839 he made a boat, and in it he and his brother 
took a voyage on the Concord and Merrimac rivers. 
He was keeping a journal as usual, and he wrote in it 
an account of the trip. This, as published, is more 
tha.i a guide-book, for on one page is a disquisition on 
the habits of the pickerel ; on another a discourse on 
frierd'ihip or Chaucer or the ruins of Egypt, as it may 



l849] THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS 321 

chance. Occasionally there is a poem, sometimes with 
such a fine bit of description as this, written of the effect 
of the clear light of sunset : — 

Mountains and trees 
Stand as they were on air graven. 

Of a churlish man whom he met in the mountains he 
wrote serenely, " I suffered him to pass for what he was, 
— for why should I quarrel with nature? — and was 
even pleased at the discovery of such a singular natural 
phenomenon." Thoreau is always interesting. What 
he says has ever the charm of the straightforward 
thought of a wise, honest, widely read, and keenly 
observant man ; but he is most delightful when his 
knowledge of nature and his tender, sympathetic humor 
are combined ; as, for instance, in his little talk about 
the shad, that, "armed only with innocence and a just 
cause," are ever finding a " corporation with its dam " 
blocking the way to their old haunts. " Keep a stiff 
fin," he says cheerily, " and stem all the tides thou mayst 
meet." 

These quotations are from A Week on the Coticotd and 
Merrimack Rivers, his journal of the little voyage with 
many later additions. He prepared it for the 
press, and offered it to publisher after pub- the concord 
lisher ; but no one was willing to run the finan- rima^k^" 
cial risk of putting it into print. At last he Rivers, 
pubhshed one thousand copies at his own ex- 
pense. Four years later, 706 unsold volumes were re- 
turned to him. He wrote in his journal, " I have now a 
library of nearly 900 volumes, over 700 of which I wrote 
myself." Then he calmly went to work at surveying to 
finish paying the printer's bills. 

Only one other volume of Thoreau's writings, Waiden^ 



322 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1804-1864 

was published during his life; but critics discovered, one 
waiden, ^Y °"^' ^^^^ ^^^ ^^"^^ reading, his minute know- 
1854. ledge of nature, his warm sympathy with every 

Hving creature, and his ability to put his knowledge and 
his thoughts on paper, were a rare combination of gifts. 




THOREAU'S HOUSE AT WALDEN 



His thirty-nine volumes of manuscript journals were care- 
fully read, and they were finally published ; but not 
until Thoreau had been dead for many years. 

26. Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864. The con- 
nection of Hawthorne with the transcendentalists came 
Brook Farm, ^bout through his joining what was known as the 
1841. Brook Farm project. A company of "dream- 

ers " united in buying this farm in the expectation that it 
could be carried on with profit if they all worked a few 



1825] 



THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS 



hours each day. The rest of the time they were to have 
for social enjoyment and intellectual pursuits. Haw- 
thorne was engaged to a brilliant, charming woman, and 
he hoped to be able to make a home for them at Brook 
Farm. The project failed, but he married and went to 
live at the Old Manse in Concord, to find perfect hap- 
piness in his home, and to work his way toward literary 
fame. 

He had led a singular life. When he was four years 
old, his father, a sea-captain, died in South America. 
His mother shut herself away from the outside g^^. 
world and almost from her own family. The thome's 

6&rlv Ufo 

little boy was sent to school ; but soon a foot- 
ball injury confined him to the silent house for two years. 
There was little to do but 
read ; and he read from 
morning till night. Frois- 
sart. Pilgrim s Progress, 
and Spenser carried him 
away to the realms of the 
imagination, and made 
the long days a delight. 
At last he was well again ; 
and then came one gloria 
ous year by Sebago Lake, 
where he wandered at his 
will in the grand old for- 
ests of Maine. H e gradu- 
ated at Bowdoin College 
in the famous class of 
1825. There were names 
among those college boys 
that their bearers were afterwards to make famous : Henry 
W. Longfellow, J. S. C. Abbott, George B. Cheever, and 




NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

1804-1864 



324 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1837-1846 

Horatio Bridge ; and in the preceding class was Frank- 
lin Pierce. The last two became Hawthorne's warmest 
friends. 

Graduation separated him from his college compan- 
ions ; indeed, for twelve years he was isolated from 
almost every one. He had returned to his home in 
Salem. His older sister had become nearly as much of 
a recluse as her mother. Interruptions were almost un- 
known, and the young man wrote and read by day and 
by night. He published a novel which he was after- 
wards glad did not sell. He wrote many short stories. 
Most of them he burned ; some he sent to various pub- 
lishers. At the end of the twelve years, Bridge urged 
him to publish his stories in a volume, and offered to 
Twice- ^^ responsible for the expense. This book was 
Told Tales, the Tzvicc-Told Tales. Soon after his mar- 
Tales", riage he published the second series of Tales, 
second and a few years later, Mosses from an Old 
1842.' Manse. Most people who read these stories 
Mosses were pleased with them, but few recognized in 

from an '^ • ° 

Old Manse, their author the promise of a great romancer, 
1846. Meanwhile, the romancer needed an income, 

and he was glad to retain the Custom House position 
in Boston that George Bancroft had secured for him. 
After a while he was transferred to the Salem Custom 
House. Then came a change in political power, and 
one day he had to tell his wife that he had been thrown 
out of his position. "I am glad," she said, "for now 
you can write your book." She produced a sum of 
money which she had been quietly saving for some such 
emergency, and her husband took up his pen with all 
good cheer. Not many months later, "a big man with 
brown beard and shining eyes, who bubbled over with 
enthusiasm and fun," knocked at the door. He was 



i8so-i86o] THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS 325 

James T. Fields, the publisher. He had read the manu- 
script, and he had come to tell its author what a mag- 
nificent piece of work it was. " It is the greatest book 
of the age," he declared. Even Fields, however, did not 
knovv what appreciation it would meet, and he did not 
stereotype it. The result was that, two weeks after its 
publication, the type had to be reset, for the whole edi- 
tion had been sold. This book was The Scarlet The 
Letter, that marvellous picture of the stern old ^''"^®* 
Puritan days, softened and illumined by the 1850. 
touch of a genius. One need not fear to say that it is 
still the greatest American book. 

Hawthorne had now come to the atmosphere of appre- 
ciation that inspired him to do his best work, ^he House 
Within three short years he wrote The House of of the seven 

. Gahles 

the Seven Gables, a book of weird, pathetic humor 1351, ' 
and flashes of everyday sunshine. Then came The won- 

, der-Book, 

The Wonder-Book, the little volume that is so issi. 

dear to the hearts of children. The Blithedalc suthedaie 

Romance, 
Romance followed, whose suggestion arose from 1852. 

the months at Brook Farm. The life of his p}*®"* 

dear friend, Franklin Pierce, and Tangleiuood 1852. 

Tales came next,- — a glorious record for less woodTaies, 

than three years. i^hz. 

Franklin Pierce had become President, and he ap- 
pointed his old friend consul at Liverpool. Four years of 
the consulship and three years of travel resulted ^^^ Marble 
in the Note-Books and The Marble Faun, the Faun, 
fourth of his great romances. Four years after 
its publication, Hawthorne died. 

It is as difficult to compare Hawthorne's romances 
with the novels of other writers of fiction as to compare 
a strain of music with a painting, for their aims are entirely 
different. Novelists strive to make their characters life- 



326 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1804-1864 

like, to surround them with difficulties, and to keep the 
Difference reader in suspense as to the outcome of the 
between struggle. Hawthorne's characters are clearly 

Hawthorne 7 , . , , ^ i-rr 

and other outlmed, but they seem to belong to a dirrer- 
noveiists. gj-jj- ^orld. We could talk freely with Rip Van 
Winkle, but we should hardly know what to say to 
Clifford or Hepzibah, or even to Phebe. Nor are the 
endings of Hawthorne's books of supreme interest. The 
fact that four people in T/ie House of the Seven Gables 
finally come to their own is not the most impressive fact 
of the story. 

Hawthorne's power lies primarily in his knowledge of 
the human heart and in his ability to trace step by step 
jj ^ the effect upon it of a single action. His charm 

theme's comes from a humor so delicate that sometimes 
'°"^"' we hardly realize its presence ; from a style so 
artistic that it is almost without flaw ; from a manner of 
treating the supernatural that is purely his own. He 
has no clumsy ventriloquistic trickery like Brown ; he 
gives the suggestive hint that sets our own fancy to 
work, then with a half smile he quietly offers us the 
choice of a matter-of-fact explanation, — which, of course, 
we refuse to accept. But the magic that removes Haw- 
thorne's stories farthest from everyday life is the differ- 
ent atmosphere in which they seem to exist. The char- 
acters are real people, but they are seen through the 
thought of the romancer. In The House of the Seven 
Gables, Hawthorne ponders on how "the wrong-doing 
of one generation, lives into the successive ones ; " and 
everything is seen through the medium of that thought. 
No other American author has shown such profound 
knowledge of the human heart or has put that knowledge 
into words with so accurate and delicate a touch. No 
one else has treated the supernatural in so fascinating a 



1815-1865] THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS ^2/ 

manner or has mingled so gracefully the prosaic and the 
ideal. No one else has manifested such perfection of 
literary style. Longfellow has well said: — 

Ah ! who shall lift that wand of magic power, 

And the lost clew regain? 
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower 

Unfinished must remain ! 

B. The Transcendentalists 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 
Henry David Thoreau 
Nathaniel Hawthorne 

SUMMARY 

Transcendentalism had a strong effect upon New England 
literature. Its literary organ was The Dial. Among its 
special advocates were Channing, Parker, and Alcott. It 
aroused at first much unbalanced enthusiasm ; but later it 
led toward freedom of thought and of life. Emerson and 
Thoreau are counted as the transcendentalists of American 
literature, Hawthorne is often classed with them. 

Emerson became a minister, but resigned because of disa- 
greement with the belief of his church. He delivered many 
lectures. His Phi Beta Kappa oration in 1837 was an " in- 
tellectual Declaration of Independence," Respect for one's 
own individuality was the keynote of his teaching. 

Thoreau cared little for people in the mass, but loved his 
friends and nature. His Week on tJie Concord and Merrimack 
Rivers and Waldeti were published during his lifetime. The 
value of his work as author and naturalist was not fully 
appreciated until long after his death. 

Hawthorne was connected with the transcendentalists 
through the Brook Farm project and the spirit of his writings. 
His early life was singularly lonely, though he made warm 
friends in college. For twelve years after graduation, he was 
a literary recluse. Losing his position in the Salem Custom 
House, he produced The Scarlet Letter, which made him 



328 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1815-1865 

famous. Other works followed. Seven years abroad as con- 
sul resulted in the Note-Books and The Marble Faun. In 
American literature he is unequalled for knowledge of the 
human heart, for fascinating treatment of the supernatural, 
for graceful mingling of the prosaic and the ideal, and for 
perfection of literary style. 



CHAPTER V 

THE NATIONAL PERIOD, 1815— 

I. EARLIER YEARS, 1815-1865 
C. THE ANTI-SLAVERY WRITERS 

27. The Anti-slavery movement. Side by side with 
the transcendental movement was a second which 
strongly affected literature, the anti-slavery movement. 
The second was the logical companion of the first. " Let 
every man be free to live his own life," proclaimed the 
transcendentalists. " How can a man be free to live his 
own life if he is held in bondage ? " retorted the anti- 
slavery advocates. After the struggle concerning the 
extension of slavery which resulted in the Missouri Com- 
promise of 1820, the subject had been gradually dropped. 
To be sure, the Quakers were still unmoved in their op- 
position, but the masses of the people in the free States 
had come to feel that to attempt to break up slavery 
was to threaten the very existence of the Union. The 
revival of the question was due to William Lloyd Gar- 
rison, who took this ground. Slavery is wrong ; therefore 
every slave should be freed at once, and God will take 
care of the consequences. This was a direct challenge 
to the conscience of every man in the nation. It was 
complicated by questions of social safety and of business 
and financial interests as well as by sympathetic and 
sectional feelings. There was no dearth of material for 
thought, discussion, and literature. 

Among the many New England writers whose names 
will ever be associated with the emancipation of the 



330 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1807-1892 

slave are the poet Whittier and the noveHst Harriet 
Beecher Stowe. 

28. John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807-1892. In a 
quiet Quaker farmhouse in the town of Haverhill, there 
lived a boy who longed for books and school, but had to 
stay at home and work on the farm. The family library 
consisted of about thirty volumes, chiefly the lives of 
prominent Quakers. The boy read these over and over 
and even made a catalogue of them in rhyme. One day 
the schoolmaster came to the house with a copy of 
Burns's poems in his pocket. He read aloud poem after 
poem, and the bright-eyed boy listened as if his mind 
had been starved. " Shall I lend it to you ? " the master 
asked, and the boy took the book gratefully. After a 
while he paid a visit to Boston and came home happy but 
a little conscience-smitten, for he had bought a copy of 
Shakespeare, and he knew that Quakers did not approve 
of plays. 

One day when the boy and his father were mending 
a stone wall, a man rode by distributing Garrison's Free 
Press to its subscribers. He tossed a paper to the boy, 
who glanced from page to page, looking especially, as 
First printed was his wont, at the corner where the poetry 
poem. .y^as usually printed. He read there " The 

Exile's Departure." " Thee had better put up the paper 
and go to work," said his father ; but still the boy gazed, 
for the poem was signed " W.," and it was his own! 
His older sister Mary had quietly sent it to the editor 
without saying anything to her brother. The next scene 
was like a fairy story. Not long afterwards a carriage 
stopped at the door. A young man, well dressed and 
with the easy manner of one used to society, inquired 
for his new contributor. " I can't go in," declared the shy 
poet. "Thee must," said the sister Mary. Mr. Garrison 



l866] THE ANTI-SLAVERY WRITERS ^^i 

told the family that the son had "true poetic genius," 
and that he ought to have an education. " Don't thee 
put such notions into the boy's head," said the father, 
for he saw no way to afford even a single term at school. 
A way was arranged, however, by which the young man 
could pay his board ; and he had one year at an acad- 
emy. This was almost his only schooling, but he was 
an eager student all the days of his life. 

Through Garrison's influence an opportunity to do 
editorial work was offered him. He became deeply inter- 
ested in public matters. The very air was tin- Editorial 
gling with the question : Slavery or no slavery .'' ^ork. 
He threw the whole force of his thought and his pen 
against slavery. From the peace-loving Quaker came 
lyrics that were like the clashing of swords. 

The years passed swiftly, and Whittier gained reputa- 
tion as a poet slowly. He published several early vol- 
umes of poems, but it was not until 1866 that he really 
touched the heart of the country, for then he published 
Snozv-Boimd. There are poems by scgres that snow- 
portray passing moods or tell interesting stories Bound, 
or describe beautiful scenes ; but, save for The 
Cotter s Saturday Nig/it, there is hardly another that gives 
so vivid a picture of home life. We almost feel the chill 
in the air before the coming storm ; we fancy that we are 
with the group who sit " the clean-winged hearth about : " 
we listen to the "tales of witchcraft old," the stories of 
Indian attacks, of life in the logging camps ; we see the 
schoolmaster, the Dartmouth boy who is teasing "the 
mitten-blinded cat" and telling of college pranks. The 
mother turns her wheel, and the days pass till the storm is 
over and the roads are open. The poem is true, simple, 
and vivid, and it is full of such phrases as "the sun, a 
snow-blown traveller ; " " the great throat of the chimney 



332 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1866 

laughed;" "between the andirons' straddling feet," — 
phrases that outline a picture with the sure and certain 
touch of a master. The poem is "real," but with the 
reality given by the brush of an artist. Snow-Boimd is 
Whittier' s masterpiece ; but The Eternal Goodness and 




THE KITCHEN OF "SNOW-BOUND' 



some of his ballads, The Barefoot Boy, In School-Days, 
Among the Hills, Telling the Bees, and a few other poems, 
come so close to the heart that they can never be for- 
gotten. 

Whittier was always fond of children. The story is 
told that he came from the pine woods one day with his 
pet, Phebe, and said merrily, " Phebe is seventy, I am 
seven, and we both act like sixty." He lived to see his 
eighty-fifth birthday in the midst of love and honors. One 
who was near him when the end came tells us that among 
his last whispered words were " Love to the world." 

29. Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811-1896. When the 
future novelist was a child in school in Litchfield, Con- 



I8il-i8s2] THE ANTI-SLAVERY WRITERS ^j^^ 

necticut, her father, Dr. Beecher, one day went to visit the 
academy. Classes were called up to recite ; then com- 
positions were read. One of these was on this subject : 
" Can the Immortality of the Soul be proved from the 
Light of Nature ? " It was remarkably well written, and 
Dr. Beecher asked quickly, "Who wrote that.^ " " Your 
daughter, sir," was the reply of the teacher. This 
daughter was then a girl of only twelve ; and it is hardly 
surprising that when she was fourteen she was teaching 
a class in Butler's Ajialogy'm her sister's school in Hart- 
ford, She taught and studied until she was twenty-four. 
She compiled a small geography, but the idea of writing 
a novel seems not to have entered her mind. 

At twenty-four Harriet Beecher became Harriet 
Beecher Stowe by her marriage to Prof. C. E. Stowe. 
In their Cincinnati home they heard many stories from 
runaway slaves who had crossed the Ohio River to escape 
to a free State. After some years her husband was 
called to Bowdoin College, but the stories lingered in 
her mind ; and in 1852 her Ujicle Tout s Cabin uncie 
was published in book form. It had received ^^^ 
no special attention in coming out as a serial, 1852. 
but its sale as a book was astounding, — half a million 
copies in the United States alone within five years. 
The sale in other countries was enormous, and the work 
has been translated into more than twenty languages. 

There were several reasons for this remarkable sale. 
To be sure, the book was carelessly written and is of 
unequal excellence ; its plot is of small interest cause oi its 
and is loosely connected. On the other hand, i^sesaie. 
its humor is irresistible ; its pathos is really pathetic ; 
and some .of its characters are so vividly painted that 
the names of two or three have become a part of every- 
day speech. Moreover, it came straight from the au- 



334 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1859-1869 

thor"s heart, for she beheved every word that she wrote. 
Another reason, and the strongest reason, for its large 
immediate sales, was the condition of affairs in the 
United States at the time when it was issued. It was 
only nine years before the opening of the Civil War. 
The South protested, " This book is an utterly false 
representation of the life of the Southern States." The 
North retorted, " We believe that it is true." And 
meanwhile, every one wanted to read it. The feeling 
on both sides grew more and more intense. When 
President Lincoln met Mrs. Stowe, he said, " Is this the 
little woman who made this great war.-*" 

Mrs. Stowe wrote a number of other books. Her best 

literary success was in her New England stories, The 

Minister s Wooing, The Pearl of Orrs Island, 

Ser-^woo- and Oldtown Folks. She wrote in the midst 

ing, 1859. of difficulties. One of her friends has given us 

The Pearl ^ , . . . 

of Orrs an amusmg account of her dictatmg a story m 

Island, ^y^Q kitchen, with the inkstand on the teakettle, 

1862. Old- 

townFoiks. the latest baby in the clothes basket, the table 
"^^' loaded with all the paraphernalia of cooking, 

and an unskilled servant making constant appeals for 
direction in her work. More than one of Mrs. Stowe's 
books were written in surroundings much like these. It 
is no wonder that she left punctuation to the printer. 

30. Oratory. It was in great degree the question of 
slavery that made the New England of this period so 
rich in orators. Feeling became more and more intense. 
The printed page could not express it ; the man must 
come face to face with the people whom he was burning 
to convince. The power to move an audience is elo- 
quence, and eloquence there was in the land_ in liberal 
measure. There was William Lloyd Garrison, with his 
scathing earnestness of conviction ; there was Edward 



prnffTTl^^ 



wrr^fiiril^^ 




i 



r 



t r 



^^|l ilwillllllil 



CHARLES SUMNER EDWARD EVERETT 

DANIEL WEBSTER 
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON WENDELL PHILLIPS 



336 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1782-1852 

Everett, who used words as a painter uses his colors ; 
there was Wendell Phillips, whose magnetism almost 
won over those who were scorched by his invective ; 
there was Charles Sumner, brilliant, polished, logical, 
sometimes reaching the sublime ; there was Rufiis 
Choate, with his richness of vocabulary, his enchanting 
splendor of description, his thrilling appeals to the im- 
agination ; and there was Daniel Webster, greatest of 
them all in the impression that he gave of exhaustless 
power ever lying behind his sonorous phrases. Such 
was the oratory of New England. Eloquence, however, 
makes its appeal not only by words, but by voice, ges- 
ture, manner, — by personality. Its rewards are those 
of the moment. An hour after the delivery of the most 
brilliant oration, its glory is but a memory ; in a few 
years it is but a tradition. Literature recognizes no 
tools but printed words. It often lacks immediate recog- 
nition, but whatever there is in it of merit cannot fail to 
win appreciation sooner or later. Oratory is not neces- 
sarily literature ; but the orations of Webster lose little 
of their power when transferred to the printed page ; 
they not only Jiear zvell but read zuell. • 

Webster was a New Hampshire boy whose later 
home was Massachusetts. He won early fame 
Webster, as a lawyer and speaker, but his first great 
^^ ' ■ oratorical success was his oration delivered 
at Plymouth in 1820. He spoke at the laying of the 
corner-stone of the Bunker Hill monument, and again at 
its completion. As a man in public life, as a member 
of Congress, and as Secretary of State, many of his ora- 
tions were of a political nature, the greatest of these 
being his reply to Hayne. His law practice was con- 
tinued, and even some of his legal speeches have become 
classics. Perhaps the most noted among them is the 



i82o-i8s2] THE ANTI-SLAVERY WRITERS T^T^y 

one on the murder of Captain Joseph White, with its 
thriUing account of the deed of the assassin, of the hor- 
ror of the possession of the "fatal secret," on to the 
famous climax, " It must be confessed ; it will be con- 
fessed ; there is no refuge from confession but in sui- 
cide, — and suicide is confession ! " 

Webster's words, spoken with his sonorous, melodious 
voice, and strengthened by the impression of power and 
immeasurable reserved force, might easily sway an audi- 
ence ; but what is it that has made them literature ? 
How is it that while most speeches pale and fade in the 
reading, and lose the life and glow bestowed by the per- 
sonality of the orator, Webster's are as mighty in the 
domain of literature as in that of oratory ? It is because 
his thought is so clear, his argument so irresistible and 
so logical in arrangement, his style so dignified and vig- 
orous and finished, and above all so perfectly adapted to 
the subject. When we read his words, we forget speaker, 
audience, and style, we forget to notice how he has 
spoken and think only on what he has spoken, — and 
such writings are literature. 

C. The Anti-Slavery Writers 

John Greenleaf Whittier. 
Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

ORATORS 

William Lloyd Garrison Charles Sumner 

Edward Everett Rufus Choate 

Wendell Phillips Daniel Webster. 

SUMMARY 

The anti-slavery movement strongly affected literature. 
It was aroused by Garrison. Among the many names asso- 
ciated with its literature are those of Whittier and Mrs. 



338 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1815-1865 

Stowe. Whittier's first published poem was in Garrison's 
Free Press. By Garrison's influence he was sent to school 
and later entered upon editorial work. He wrote many ring- 
ing anti-slavery poems. In 1866 his Snow- Bo U7i d X.o\ic\\^A the 
heart of the country. Many of his ballads are of rare excel- 
lence. 

Mrs. Stowe founded Uncle loins Cabin upon the stories of 
escaped slaves. Its enormous sale was due to its humor, 
pathos, and earnestness, and to the time of its publication. 
Her best literary success was in her New England stories. 

During this period New England was also rich in orators. 
Among them were Garrison, Everett, Phillips, Sumner, 
Choate, and Webster. Not all oratory is literature, but many 
of Webster's orations are also literature. He was equally 
eloquent in occasional addresses and in legal and political 
speeches. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE NATIONAL PERIOD, 1815— 

I. EARLIER YEARS, 1815-1S65 
D. THE CAMBRIDGE POETS 

31. The Cambridge Poets. To this period belongs the 
greater part of the work of the three New England poets, 
Longfellow, Lowell, and Holmes. In the early lives of 



"f "{_ 




-^ 






■ 




CAMBRIDGE IN 1S24 





these three there was a somewhat remarkable similarity. 
They were all descendants of New England families of 
culture and standing. They grew up in homes of plenty, 
but not of undignified display. They were surrounded 
by people of education and intellectual ability. They 



340 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1807-1839 

came to feel, as Holmes puts it, as much at ease among 
books as a stable boy feels among horses. Each held a 
professorship at Harvard. Here the resemblance ends, 
for never were three poets more unlike in work and dis- 
position than the three who are known as the Cambridge 
Poets. 

32. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882. 
The birthplace of Longfellow was Portland, Maine, 
which he calls " the beautiful town that is seated by the 
sea." He had all the advantages of books, college, and 
home culture ; and he made such good use of them that 
while he was journeying homeward from Bowdoin Col- 
lege with his diploma in his trunk, the trustees were 
meditating upon offering the young man of nineteen the 
professorship of modern languages in his Alma Mater. 
He accepted gladly, spent three years in Europe pre- 
paring for the position, and returned to Bowdoin, where 
he remained for six years. Then came a call to become 
professor at Harvard ; and a welcome professor he was, 
for his fame had gone before him. The boys were 
proud to be in the classes of a teacher who, with the 
exception of George Ticknor, a much older man, was 
the best American scholar of the languages and litera- 
ture of modern Europe. He was a poet, too ; his Sum- 
mer Shozvcr had been in their reading-books. Some of 
them had read his Outre Mer, a graceful and poetical 
mingling of bits of travel, stories, and translations. 
Moreover, he was a somewhat new kind of professor 
to the Harvard students of 1836, for he persisted in 
treating them as if they were gentlemen ; and, whatever 
they might be with others, they always were gentlemen 
with him. 

Up to 1839, the mass of Longfellow's work was in 
prose ; but in that year he published first Hyperion and 



1839-1S40] THE CAMBRIDGE POETS 34^ 

then Voices of the Night. In the latter volume were 
translations from six or seven languages. There Hyperion, 
were also A Psalm of Life and The Reaper ajid ^^^^^^ 
the Flowers. These have had nearly seventy i839. 
years of hard wear ; but read them as if no one had ever 
read them before, and think what courage and inspiration 
there is in — 

Let us, then, be up and doing, 
With a heart for any fate ; 

Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labor and to wait. 

The lovers of poetry were watching the young professor 
at Harvard. What would be his next work } When 
his next volume came out, it contained, among The Skeie- 
other poems, TJie Skeleton in Armor. Thus Amor 
far, his writings had been thoughtful and beauti- i840. 
ful, but in this there was something more ; there was a 
stronger flight of the imagination, there was life, action, 
a story to tell, and generous promise for the future. 

So Longfellow's work went on. He lived in the charm- 
ing old Craigie House in Cambridge, where, as he wrote. 

Once, ah, once, within these walls. 
One whom memory oft recalls. 
The Father of his Country, dwelt. 

His longest narrative poems are Evangeline, The Court- 
ship of Miles Standish, and The Song of Hiawatha, 
which have been favorites from the first. He translated 
Dante's Divine Comedy and wrote several Transia- 
dramas. His translations are much more ^'°°^' 
literal than those of most writers ; but they are never 
bald and prosy, for he gives to every phrase the master 
touch that makes it glow with poetry. Few, if any, 
poems are more American and more patriotic than his 
Bnilding of tJic Ship, with its impassioned apostrophe : — 



342 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1807-1882 

Thou, too, sail on, Ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 

Nevertheless, Longfellow loved the Old World and the 
literatures of many peoples. In his translations he 
brought to his own country the culture of the lands 
across the sea. In so doing he not only enabled others 




CRAIGIE HOUSE 



to share in his enjoyment, but did much to prove to 
the youthful literature of the New World that there 
were still heights for it to ascend. 

Longfellow knew how to beautify his verse with ex- 
Literary quisite imagery, but this imagery was never 
^^^^°- used merely for ornament ; it invariably flashed 

a light upon the thought, as in — 

Feeling is deep and still ; and the word that floats on the surface 
Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden. 



1S07-1882] THE CAMBRIDGE POETS 343 

He had the abihty to produce beauty from the simplest 
materials. Once, for instance, he chose a time-worn 
subject, he made a time-worn comparison, he used in 
his fifteen lines of verse but fifty-six different words, all 
everyday words and five sixths of them monosyllables ; 
and with such materials he composed his Rainy Day ! 
His writings are so smooth and graceful that one some- 
times overlooks their strength. Evangeline, for instance, 
is "A Tale of Love in Acadie," but it is also a picture 
of indomitable purpose and unfaltering resolution. Miles 
Standish is more than a charming Puritan idyl, cen- 
tring in an archly demure, " Why don't you speak for 
yourself, John.'' " It is a maiden's fearless obedience to 
the voice of her heart, and a strongman's noble conquest 
of himself. The keynote of much of Longfellow's lyric 
verse is his sympathy. When sorrow came to him, his 
pity did not centre in himself, but went out into the 
world to all who suffered. In the midst of his own grief, 
he wrote : — 

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, 
But has one vacant chair. 

" Read me that poem," said a bereaved mother, " for 
Longfellow understood." That is why Longfellow is 
great. In his Hiawatha he introduced a Finnish metre ; 
in Evangeline he first succeeded in using the classic 
hexameter in English. Thus he gave new tools to the 
Wrights of English verse ; but it was a far greater glory 
to be able to speak directly to the hearts of the people. 
This gift, together with his pure and blameless life, 
won for him an affection so peculiarly reverent that, 
even while he lived, thousands of his readers spoke his 
name with the tenderness of accent oftenest given to 
those who are no longer among us. Happy is the man 
who wins both fame and love ! 



344 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1819-1S91 

33. James Russell Lowell, 1819-1891. A big, 
roomy house, fields, woods, pastures, libraries, a college 
at hand, older brothers and sisters, a father and mother 
of education and refinement, — such were the surround- 
ings of Lowell's early life. The Vision of Sir Launfal 




ELMWOOD 



shows how well he learned the out-of-door world ; his 
essays prove on every page how familiar he became with 
the world of books. 

When the time for college had come, there were diffi- 
culties. The boy was ready to read every volume not 
required by the curriculum, and to keep every rule ex- 
cept those invented by the faculty. When graduation 
time drew near, his parents were in Rome. Some one 
hastened to tell them that their son had been rusticated 
to Concord for six weeks and had also been chosen class 
poet. " Oh, dear ! " exclaimed the despairing father, 



1848] THE CAMBRIDGE POETS 345 

"James promised me that he would quit writing poetry 
and go to work." 

Fortunately for the lovers of good poetry, "James" 
did not keep his word. He struggled manfully to be- 
come a lawyer, but he could not help being a poet. Just 
ten years after graduating, he brought out in one short 
twelvemonth three significant poems. The first was 
The Vision of Sir Laiinfal, with its loving outburst of 
sympathy with nature. He knew well how the clod — 

Groping blindly above it for light, • 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers. 

Sir Launfal, too, climbs to a soul, for the poem is the 
story of a life. The second poem was A Fable for 
Critics. The fable proper is as dull as the The vision oi 
preposterous rhymes and unthinkable puns of ^'pa^^J^joj' 
Lowell will permit ; but its pithy criticisms critics, 
of various authors have well endured the papersf ^^ 
wear and tear of half a century. The third i848. 
was The Biglow Papers. Here was an entirely new 
vein. Here the Yankee dialect — which is so often only 
a survival of the English of Shakespeare's day — became 
a literary language. Lowell could have easily put his 
thoughts into the polished sentences of the scholar ; 
but the homely wording which he chose to employ gives 
them a certain everyday strength and vigor that a 
smoother phrasing would have weakened. When he 
writes, — 

Ez far war, I call it murder; 
There you hev it plain an' flat; 

I don't want to go no furder 
Than my Testyment fer that, — 

he strikes a blow that has something of the keenness of 
the sword and the weight of the cudgel. 

These three poems indicate the three directions in 



346 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1809-1894 

which Lowell did his best work ; for he was poet, critic, 
and reformer, — sometimes all three in one. In such 
poems as The Present Crisis, that stern and solemn 
arraignment of his countrymen, there is as much of 
earnest protest as of poetry. So in The Dandelion, his 
" dear, common flower " reveals to him not only its 
own beauty, but the thought that every human heart is 
sacred. 

Lowell's lyrics are only a small part of his work ; for 
«he took the place of Longfellow at Harvard, he edited 
Scope of the Atlantic and the NortJi American Review ; 
his work, j^g wrote many magazine articles on literary 
and political subjects ; he delivered addresses and 
poems, the noble Commemoration Ode ranking highest 
of all ; and he was minister, first to Spain, and then to 
England. In his prose writings one is almost over- 
whelmed with the wideness of his knowledge, yet there 
is never a touch of pedantry. He always writes as if 
his readers were as much at home in the world of books 
as himself. The serious thought is ever brightened by 
gleams of humor, flashes of wit. When we take up one 
of his writings, it will " perchance turn out a song, per- 
chance turn out a sermon." It may be full of strong and 
manly thought, and it may be all a-whirl with rollicking 
merriment ; but whatever else it is, it will be sincere and 
honest and interesting. It is easier to label and classify 
the man who writes in but one manner, and it may be 
that he wins a surer fame ; but we should be sorry in- 
deed to miss either scholar, critic, wit, or reformer from 
the work of the poet Lowell. 

34. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809-1894. On the 
page for August in a copy of the old MassacJmsctts 
Register iox i8og, the twenty-ninth day is marked, and 
at the bottoni of the page is a foot-note, " Son b." In 



1830-1836] THE CAMBRIDGE POETS 347 

this laconic fashion was noted the advent of the physi- 

cian-noveUst-poet. He had also a chance of becoming 

a clergyman and a lawyer ; for his father favored the 

one profession, and he himself gave a year's study to the 

other. It was while he was poring over Blackstone that 

the order was given to break up the old bat<^leship Con- 

stiUition. Then it was that he wrote Old Iron- ^,, , 

Old Iron- 

sides. The poem was printed on handbills, sides, 
They were showered about the streets of 
Washington, and the Secretary of the Navy revoked his 
order. Holmes was twenty-one. The question of a 
profession was still unsettled. Finally he decided to be 
a physician ; but, as he said, " The man or woman who 
has tasted type is sure to return to his old indulgence 
sooner or later." In Holmes's case, it was sooner, for 
he had hardly taken his degree before the poems, 
publishers were advertising a volume of his ^^^^ 
poems. Here were My Awit, The September Gale, and 
best of all. The Last Leaf, the verses that one reads 
with a smile on the lips and tears in the eyes. 

The young physician's practice did not occupy much 
of his time, chiefly because he wrote poetry and made 
witty remarks. These were a delight to the well folk, 
but the sick people were a little afraid of a doctor whose 
interest and knowledge were not limited to pills and 
powders. Moreover, the man who lay ill of a fever 
could not forget that the brilliant young M. D. had said 
jauntily of his slender practice, " Even the smallest 
fevers thankfully received." Soon an invitation came to 
teach anatomy at Dartmouth ; and, a few years later, to 
teach the same subject at Harvard. Holmes was suc- 
cessful in both places ; for with all his love of literature, 
he had a genuine devotion to his profession. He wrote 
much on medical subjects, and three times his essays 



348 



AMERICA'S LITERATURE 



[185? 



gained the famous Boylston prize, offered annually by 
Harvard College for the best dissertations on questions 
in medical science. 

In 1857, the publishers, Phillips, Sampson and Co., 
decided to establish a new magazine. " Will you be its 
editor.''" they asked Lowell; and he finally replied, 




THE AUTOCRAT LEAVING HIS BOSTON HOME FOR A MORNING WALK 



" I only wish a hut of stone 
(A very plain brown stone will do).' 



" Yes, if Dr. Holmes can be the first contributor to be 
TheAtian- engaged." Dr. Holmes became not only the 
tic, 1857. flj-st contributor, but he named the magazine 
The Atla7itic. Some twenty-five years earlier he had 



1857-1861] THE CAMBRIDGE POETS 349 

written two papers called The Autocrat of the Breakfast 
Tdble. He now continued them, beginning, " I The Auto- 
was just going to say when I was interrupted." cratof the 
The scene is laid at the table of a boarding- Table, 
house. The Autocrat carries on a brilliant '^^^'^• 
monologue, broken from time to time by a word from 
the lady who asks for original poetry for her album, from 
the theological student, the old gentleman, or the young 
man John ; or by an anxious look on the face of the 
landlady, to whom some paradoxical speech of the 
Autocrat's suggests insanity and the loss of a boarder. 
Howells calls The Autocrat a "dramatized essay;" but, 
whatever it is called, it will bear many readings and 
seem brighter and fresher at each one. Among the 
paragraphs of The Autocrat and The Professor, which 
followed, a number of poems are interspersed. Three of 
them are The Onc-Hoss Shay, with its irrefutable logic -, 
Contentment, with its modest — 

I only wish a hut of stone 

(A very plain brown stone will do), — 

and the exquisite lines of The Chambered Nantihts, with 
its superb appeal, — 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul ! 

Holmes was also a novelist ; for he produced Elsie 
Venner a.nd two other works of fiction, all showing power 
of characterization, and all finding their chief ^.^^^ 
interest in some study of the mysterious con- venner, 
nection between mind and body. " Medicated 
novels," a friend mischievously called them, somewhat 
to the wrath of their author. 

Nearly half of Holmes's poems were written for some 
special occasion, — some anniversary, or class occasional 
reunion, or reception of a famous guest. At '""• 



350 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1815-1865 

such times he was at his best ; for the demand for occa- 
sional verse, which freezes most wielders of the pen, was 
to him a breath of inspiration. 

Holmes's wit is ever fascinating, his pathos is ever 
sincere ; but the charm that will perhaps be even more 
Holmes's powerful to hold his readers is his delightful 
charm. personality, which is revealed in every sen- 
tence. A book of his never stands alone, for the be- 
loved Autocrat is ever peeping through it. His tender 
heart first feels the pathos that he reveals to us; his 
kindly spirit is behind every flash of wit, every sword- 
thrust of satire. 

D. The Cambridge Poets 

Henry Wadsvvortli Longfellow 
James Russell Lowell 
Oliver Wendell Holmes 

SUMMARY 

The Cambridge Poets were all descendants of cultivated 
New England families and grew up among intellectual sur- 
roundings. All held professorships at Harvard. 

Longfellow graduated at Bowdoin, and became professor 
of modern languages, first at Bowdoin and then at Harvard. 
Until 1839, when he published Voices of the Night, he wrote 
chiefly prose. The Skeleton in Armor established his reputa- 
tion as a poet. His longest narrative poems are Evangeline, 
The Courtship of Miles Standish, and The Song 0/ Hiawatha. 
His translations are both literal and poetic, and were of great 
value to the young American literature. He can beautify his 
work with figures, or he can make a poem with the simplest 
materials. His sympathy was the keynote of much of his 
lyric verse. He introduced a Finnish metre, and was the first 
to succeed in English hexameter. 

Lowell's serious work began in 1848, when he brought out 
The Vision of Sir Launfal, A Fable for Critics, and The Big- 



181S-1865] THE CAMBRIDGE POETS ,^>5 1 

low Papers. He succeeded Longfellow at Harvard, edited 
The Athnitic, wrote many magazine articles and addresses, 
was foreign minister to Spain and England. Mis writings 
show broad scholarship, love of nature, and much humor. He 
was scholar, wit, critic, reformer, and poet. 

Holmes's Olii Ironsu/cs -w^s his first prominent poem. He 
studied medicine, became professor of anatomy, first at Dart- 
mouth, then at Harvard. In 1857 he named The Afhinfic, 
and wrote The Autocrat for it. He wrote three novels, and 
was especially successful as an occasional poet. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE NATIONAL PERIOD, 1815 — 

I. EARLIER YEARS, 18x5-1865 
E. THE HISTORIANS 

35. Historical writing. In the midst of this com 
position of poetry and novels and philosophy, the early 
New England tendency toward the historical had by no 
means disappeared. Here, two opposing influences were 
at work. On the one hand, the Spanish studies of 
Irving, the History of Spanish Literature of Ticknor, 
and the translations of Longfellow, had turned men's 
minds toward European countries. On the other hand, 
the War of 181 2 and the rapid development of the 
United States had stimulated patriotism. Moreover, 
with the passing of the heroes of the Revolution, Amer- 
icans began to realize that the childhood of the United 
States had vanished, that the youthful country, had 
already a history to be recorded. The proper method of 
historical composition was pointed out to his country- 
men by Jared Sparks, first a professor and then president 
of Harvard College. 

Before the days of Sparks, few writers had felt the 
responsibility of historical writing. It was enough if a 
history was made interesting and romantic ; 
Sparks, there was little attempt to make it accurate. 
1789-1866. j7^gj^ jf original sources were at hand and 
the author took pains to examine them, he paid little 
attention to any study of causes or results, he made 



1800-1891] THE HISTORIANS 353 

no careful comparison of conflicting accounts. One 
manuscript was as good as another, and any so-called 
fact was welcome if it filled a vacant niche in the story. 
Sparks followed a different method. To gather his in- 
formation, he consulted not only the records stored in 
the dignified archives of the great libraries of Europe 
and America, but also the family papers stuffed away 
into the corners of ancient garrets. He examined old 
newspapers and pamphlets and diaries. He traced le- 
gends and traditions back to their origins. It was in this 
way that his Life and WritiJigs of George Washington, 
his partially completed History of the American Revolu- 
tion, and his other works were produced. Unfortunately, 
Sparks lacked the good fairy gift of the power to make 
his work interesting ; that was left for other writers ; 
but in thoroughness in collecting materials he was the 
pioneer. During this period, there were at least four 
historians whose fame is far greater than his ; but to 
Sparks they owe the gratitude that is ever due to him 
who has pointed out the way. These four are Bancroft 
and Parkman, who wrote on American themes ; and Pres- 
cott and Motley, who chose for their subjects different 
phases of European history. 

36. George Bancroft, 1800-1891. On a hill in the 
city of Worcester, Massachusetts, stands a tower of mas- 
sive stone. It was erected in honor of George Bancroft, 
who as a boy roamed over the hills and valleys of what 
is now a part of the city. He graduated at Harvard, 
and then went to Germany, where he studied with vari- 
ous scholars branches of learning which ranged from 
French literature to Scriptural interpretation. History oi 
At twenty he had chosen his lifework, — to guteT*** 
become a historian. Fourteen years later the I834-I882. 
first volume of his History of the United States came 



354 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1796-1837 

out, a scholarly record of the progress of our country 
from the discovery of America to the adoption of the 
Constitution in 1789. 

Bancroft's historical work extended over nearly fifty 
years ; but during that time he did much other writing, he 
was minister to England and to Berlin, and he was Secre- 
tary of the Navy, While holding this last office he de- 
cided that the United States ought to have a naval school. 
Congress did not agree, but Mr. Bancroft went quietly 
to work. He found that he had a right to choose a 
place where midshipmen should remain while waiting for 
orders, also that he could direct that the lessons given 
them at sea should be continued on land. He obtained 
Foundin of ^^^ ^^^ °^ some military buildings at Annapo- 
the Naval lis, put the boys into them, and set them to 
Academy, ^^qj-]^ Then he said to Congress, " We have 
a naval school in operation ; will you not adopt it ? " 
Congress adopted it, and thus the United States Naval 
Academy was founded. 

37. William Hickling Prescott, 1796-1859. A crust 
of bread thrown in a students' frolic at Harvard made 
Prescott nearly blind, and prevented him from becoming 
a lawyer as he had planned. With what little eyesight 
remained to him, and with an inexhaustible fund of cour- 
age and cheerfulness, he set to work to become a histo- 
rian. He made a generous preparation. For ten years 
he read by the eyes of others scores of volumes on 
ancient and modern literature. He had chosen for the 
title of his first book The History of the Reign of Ferdi. 
ThoHistory nand and Isabella. He must learn Spanish, of 
oiFerdi- course ; and he describes with a gentle humor 
nand and ^-j^g wceks spent under the trees of his country 

Isal)ella, ... 

1837. residence, listening to the reading of a man who 

understood not a word of the language. As the differ- 



1843-1877] THE HISTORIANS 355 

ent authorities were read aloud, many of them conflict- 
ing, Prescott dictated notes. When he had completed 
his reading for one chapter, he had these notes read to 
him. Then he thought over all that he meant to say in 
the chapter, — thought so exactly, and so many times, 
that when he took up his noctograph, he could write as 
rapidly as the contrivance would permit. 

It was under such discouragements that Prescott 
wrote ; but he said bravely that these difficulties were 
no excuse for " not doing well what it was not neces- 
sary to do at all." His work needs small ex- TheCon- 
cuse. He had chosen the Spanish field ; he ^g^xilo! 
wrote The Conquest of Mexico, then The Con- I843. 
qticst of Peru. Three volumes he completed quest oi 
of The History of the Reisrn of Philip the Peru, 1847. 

-^ -^ c> J ^ The History 

Second; then came death. oj the Reign 

Prescott was most painstaking in collecting °j^f gggo^^ 
facts and comparing statements, but the popu- i855-i858. 
larityof his books is due in part to their subject and in 
even greater part to their style. He wrote of the days 
of romance and wild adventure, it is true ; but yet the 
most thrilling subject will not make a thrilling writer out 
of a dull one. Prescott has written in a style that is 
strong, absolutely clear, and often poetic. He describes 
a battle or a procession or a banquet or even a wedding 
costume as if he loved to do it. Few writers have com- 
bined as successfully as he the accuracy of the historian 
and the marvellous picturing of the poet and novelist. 

38. John Lothrop Motley, 1814-1877. When Ban- 
croft was a young man, he taught for a year at Northamp- 
ton. One of his pupils was a handsome, bright-eyed 
boy named Motley. This boy's especial delight was read- 
ing poetry and novels, and a few years after he gradu- 
ated from Harvard he wrote a novel which was fairly 



356 



AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1814-1877 



good. Rewrote another, which was better; but by this 
time he had become so deeply interested in the Dutch 
Republic that he determined to write its history. Ten 
The Rise of years later he sent a manuscript to the English 
Re*puwic, publisher, Murray. It was promptly declined, 
1856. and the author published it at his own expense. 

Then Murray was a sorry man, for TJie Rise of the 
Dutch Republic was a decided success. 

The lavish amount of work that had been bestowed 

upon it ought to 
have brought suc- 
cess. Motley could 
not obtain the 
needed documents 
in America, there- 
fore he and his 
family crossed the 
ocean. When he 
had exhausted the 
library in one place, 
they went to an- 
other. He had a 
hard-working sec- 
retary, and in two 
or three countries 
he had men en- 
gaged to copy rare 
papers for his use. 
When his material 
was well in hand, 
he had the critical 
ability to select and arrange his facts, the literary instinct 
to present them in telling fashion, and the artistic talent to 
make vivid pictures of famous persons and dramatic scene3. 




JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 

1S14-1S77 



1860-1874] THE HISTORIANS 357 

One of the pleasantest facts about our greater authors 
is the ahuost invariable absence of envy among them. 
This book could hardly fail to trench upon the field of 
Prescott ; yet the blind historian was ready with the 
warmest commendations, as were Irving and Bancroft, 
Prescott, indeed, in the first volume of his Philip tJie 
Second, published a year earlier, had inserted a cordial 
note in regard to the forthcoming DiitcJi Republic. 

Motley's next book was The United Netherlands. 
One more work would have completed the his- The united 
tory of the whole struggle of the Dutch for J^J^g^" 
liberty. He postponed preparing this until he iseo-iaes. 
should have written The Life and Death of ^^^ Death 
John of Barneveld. Then came the long ill- of John of 
ness which ended his life, and the story of the 1374. 
epoch was never completed. 

39. Francis Parkman, 1823-1893. Some years be- 
fore Longfellow wrote, " The thoughts of youth are long, 
long thoughts," I-^rancis Parkman was proving the truth 
of the line ; for he, a young man of eighteen, had already 
planned his lifework. He would be an historian, and he 
would write on the subject that appealed to him most 
strongly, — the contest between France and England for 
the possession of a continent. The preparation for such 
a work required more than the reading of papers — 
though an enormous quantity of these demanded careful 
attention. The Indians must be known. Their way of 
living and thinking must be as familiar to the historian 
as his own. The only way to gain this know- ^j^^ Oregon 
ledge was to share their life; and this Parkman Trail, 
did for several months. His health failed, his 
eyesight was impaired, but he did not give up the work 
that he had planned. Before beginning it, however, he 
tried his hand by writing The Oregon Trail, an account 



358 



AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1823-1893 



of his western journeyings and his Hfe among the red 

men. 

His health was so completely broken down that for 

some time he could not listen to his secretary's reading 

for more than half an hour a day ; but he had no thought 

of yielding. He visited 
the places that he in- 
tended to describe ; he 
wrote when he could ; 
when writing was impos- 
sible, he cultivated roses 
and lilies; but whatever 
he did, and even when he 
could do nothing, he was 
always cheerful and cour- 
ageous. 

So it was that Park- 
man's work was dont- ; 
but he writes so easily, so 
gracefully, and with such 
apparent pleasure that 
the mere style of his com- 
position would make it of 

value. He seldom stops to consider motives and determine 




FRANCIS PARKMAN 
1S23-1S93 



Literary 



remote causes, but he gives us a clear narrative, 
stylo. with dramatic and picturesque descriptions of 

such verisimilitude that we should hardly be surprised to 
see a foot-note saying, " I was present. F. P." He lived 
to carry out his plan, comprising twelve volumes which 
cover the ground from Pioneers of France in tJie Nezv 
World to The Conspiracy of Pontine. Higginson's sum- 
mary of the characteristics of the four historians is as fol- 
lows : " George Bancroft, with a style in that day thought 
eloquent, but now felt to be overstrained and inflated ; 



I796--I886] - THP: HISTORIANS 359 

William H. Prescott, with attractive but colorless style 

and rather superficial interpretation. . . . John Lothrop 

Motley, laborious, but delightful ; and Francis Parknian, 

more original in his work and probably more permanent 

in his fame than any of these." 

40. Minor authors. These last four chapters have 

been devoted to the authors of highest rank during the 

early part of New England's second period of 

1- 1 1 1 • ,1 , JohnG. 

literary leadership ; but there are many others paifrey, 
whose names it is not easy to omit from even i796-i88i. 

•^ Jeremy 

so brief a sketch. In history, there are not only Belknap, 
John Gorham Palfrey, whose History of Nezv ^^i^^T^' 
England, and Jeremy Belknap, whose History Hiwreth, 

1807-1865 

of New Hampshire are still standards ; but 
there is Richard Hildreth, whose History of the United 
States, written from a political point of view opposed to 
Bancroft's, lacks only an interesting style to win the 
popularity which its research and scholarship deserve. 
In criticism, there is Edwin Percy Whipple, who re- 
viewed literary work with sympathetic good sense and 
expressed his opinions in so vigorous and interesting a 
style that his own writings became literature. He and 
Richard Henry Dana ought to have worked hand in 
hand : Whipple, to criticise completed writings ; udwin 
Dana, to cultivate the public taste to demand ^^"y 

11 T-^ -,-,,, Whipple, 

the best. Dana wrote poetry also, but it lacked 1819-1886. 
the warmth of feeling that makes a poem live. ^'"^""^ 
The Little Beach-Bird is now his best-known Dana, 
poem. Whipple calls it "delicious, but slightly ^''^^"i®''^- 
morbid ; " and it certainly has neither the tenderness of 
Henry Vaughan's The Bird nor the joyous comradeship 
of Mrs. Thaxter's The Sandpiper. Among essayists, 
there are two whose names first became well known 
during this period, Donald Grant Mitchell and George 



36o AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1822-1892 

William Curtis. The story is tolcl of Mitchell that to 
make sure of a winding, picturesque pathway from the 
road to his house, he had a heavy load of stone brought 
to the gate and bade the driver make his way up 
the hill by the easiest grades. It is " by the easiest 
grades " that his Dream Life and Reveries of a Bache- 
lor, his earliest books, roam on gently and smoothly. 
They are full of sentiment ; but it is a good, clean senti- 
flonaid ment that should be not without honor, even 
Mitchell ^^ ^ book. His latest work, English Lands, Let- 
1822-1908. ters, and Kings, has not quite the winsome charm 
of his earlier writings, but it is vigorous and picturesque. 
Here is his description of William the Conqueror : "It 
was as if a new, sharp, eager man of business had on a 
sudden come to the handling of some old sleepily con- 
ducted counting-room : he cuts off the useless heads ; 
he squares the books : he stops waste ; pity or tender- 
ness have no hearing in his shop." He says of Eliza- 
beth : " She would have been great if she had been a 
shoemaker's daughter. , . . she would have bound more 
shoes, and bound them better, and looked sharper after 
the affairs of her household than any cobbler's wife of 
the land." 

George William Curtis spent some of his schooldays 
at Brook Farm among the transcendentalists. Graceful 
sketches of travel were in vogue, and he wrote Nile 
Notes of a Howadji ; dreamy sentiment was in fashion, 
and he wrote his ever-charming Priie and /. Then he 
George became an editor, a lecturer, a political speaker. 
Curtis™ Meanwhile he had entered upon a long and 
1824-1892. honored career in the Easy Chair department 
of Harper s Magazine. For nearly forty years the read- 
ers of Harper s cut open the Easy Chair pages expect- 
antly, for there they were sure to find some pleasant 



1824-1892] THE HISTORIANS 361 

chat on topics of the day, — on The American Girl, or 
The Game of Newport, or Honor, or The New England 
Sabbath, or on some man who was in the public eye. 
Grave or satirical, they were always marked by a liquid, 
graceful style, a gentle, kindly humor, and sound thought. 
Then there were two books, a big one and a ^^^^^ 
little one, written by Noah Webster. They Webster, 

1758-1843 

were not literature, and they did not have any 
special "inspiring influence" toward the making of 
literature ; but they were exceedingly useful tools. The 
big book was Webster's Dictionary, and the little one 
was the thin, blue-covered Webster's Spelling-book. Long 
ago it went far beyond copyrights and publishers' re- 
ports ; but it is estimated that sufficient copies have 
been printed to put one into the hand of every child in 
the nation. 

Taking this literature of New England, or almost of 
Massachusetts, as a whole, we cannot fail to note its 
atmosphere of conscientious work. It is not enough 
for the poet that an inspiring thought has flashed into 
his mind ; he feels a responsibility to interpret it to the 
best of his power. In Longfellow's work, for instance, 
there is no poem that we would strike out as unworthy 
of his pen. Hawthorne's slightest sketch is as carefully 
finished as. his Scarlet Letter. Nothing is done heed- 
lessly. The Puritan conscience had been enriched with 
two centuries of culture ; but it was as much of a power 
in the literature of New England as in the lonely little 
settlements that clung to her inhospitable coast. 

E. The Historians 
Jared Sparks John Lothrop Motley- 

George Bancroft Francis Parkman 

William Hickling Prescott 



362 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1815-1865 

SUMMARY 

The Spanish studies of Irving and Ticknor and the trans- 
lations of Longfellow drew men's minds toward the Old 
World; the War of 1812 and the rapid development of the 
United States stimulated patriotism. Sparks first pointed 
out the thorough and accurate method of historical writing. 
The four leading historians of the period were : (i) Bancroft, 
who wrote the History of the United States ; (2) Prescott, 
who wrote clearly and attractively on Spanish themes, and 
whose last book, the History of the Reign of Philip the Seeo?id, 
was left incomplete ; (3) Motley, who wrote " laboriously 
but picturesquely " of the Dutch Republic, but died without 
completing its history ; (4) Parjcman, who chose for his sub- 
ject the contest between France and England for the posses- 
sion of North America, and lived to carry out his plan so 
excellently as to win permanent fame. 

Among the many minor authors of this period were the 
historians, Palfrey, Belknap, and Hildreth ; the critic, Whip- 
ple ; the critic and poet, Dana ; the essayists, Mitchell, and 
Curtis of the Easy Chair ; while Noah Webster of the Dic- 
tionary and Spelling-book must not be forgotten. 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE NATIONAL PERIOD, 1815- 

1. EARLIER YEARS, 1815-1865 
F. THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 

41. Why there was little writing in the South. 
Thus it was that literature centred about the great cities 
of the North. There were several reasons why it could 
hardly be expected to 
flourish in the South. 
In the first place, there 
were no large towns 
where publishing 
houses had been es- 
tablished and where 
men of talent might 
gain inspiration from 
one another. Again, 
there was small home 
market for the wares 
of the author. There 
were libraries in many 
of the stately homes of 
the South, but their 
shelves were filled with 
the English classics of 
the eighteenth century. 
There was no lack of 
intellectual power ; but plantation life called for executive 
ability and led naturally to" statesmanship and oratory 
rather than to the printed page. There were orators, such 




WILLIAM WIRT 
1772-1834 



364 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1772-1835 

men as Henry Clay, "the great leader;" the ardent, 
brilliant Patrick Henry of earlier times ; Robert Young 
Hayne, equally eloquent in address and in debate ; and 
John Caldwell Calhoun, whom Webster called " a senator 
of Rome." There was almost from the beginning a 
poem written in one place and a history or a biography 
William i" another. The most famous of these scat- 
win, tered writings were produced by William Wirt, 
a Maryland lawyer. Early in the century he 
wrote his Letters of a British Spy, which contains his 
touching description of The Blind Preacher. In 18 17 
his eminence as a lawyer was proved by his being chosen 
Attorney-General of the United States, and his ability 
as an author by the publication of his Life of Patrick 
Henry. This book is rather doubtful as to some of its 
facts, and rather flowery as to its rhetoric, but so vivid 
that the picture which it draws of the great orator has 
held its own for nearly a century. Charleston was the 
nearest approach to a literary centre, for it was the home 
of Simms, Hayne, and Timrod. 

42. William Gilmore Simms, 1806-1870. In 
1827, when the Knickerbocker writers had already 
brought forth some of their most valuable productions, 
Simms published a little volume of poems. He pub- 
lished a second, a third, and many others ; but his best 
work was in prose. He wrote novel after novel, as 
hastily and carelessly as Cooper, but with a certain dash 
TheYemas- and vigor. The Yemassee is ranked as his 
see, 1835. ^^^^^ work. It has no adequate plot, but con- 
tains many thrilling adventures and narrow escapes. 
Simms is often called the " Cooper of the South ; " and 
in one important detail he is Cooper's superior, namely, 
his women are real women. They are not introduced 
merely as pretty dummies whose rescue will exhibit the 



1830-1886] THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 



565 



prowess of the hero : they are thoughtful and intelligent, 
and, in time of need, they can take a hand in their own 
rescue. In The Ycmas- 
see, for instance, " Gray- 
son's wife " has a terrible 
struggle with an Indian at 
her window. She faints, 
but — like a real woman 
— not until she has won 
the victory. In one re- 
spect Simms did work 
that is of increasing 
value ; he laid his scenes 
in the country about his 
own home, he studied the 
best historical records, he 
learned the traditions of 
the South. The result is 
that in his novels there is 
a wealth of information 
about Southern colonial life that can hardly be found 
elsewhere. 

43. Paul Hamilton Hayne, 1830-1886. Simms was 
of value to the world of literature in another way than 
by wielding his own pen. He was a kind and help- 
ful friend to the younger authors who gathered around 
him. The chief of these was Hayne, who is often called 
" the poet-laureate of the South." Hayne had a com- 
fortable fortune and a troop of friends, and there was 
only one reason why his life should not have flowed on 
easily and pleasantly. That reason was the Civil War. 
He enlisted in the Confederate Army, and, even after 
he was sent home too ill for service, his pen was ever 
busied with ringing lyrics of warfare. When peace came, 




WILLIAM GILMORE CIMMS 

1S06-1870 



366 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1830-1886 

he found himself ahnost penniless. Many a man has 
taken up such a struggle with life bravely ; Hayne did 
more, for he took it up cheerfully. He built himself a 
tiny cottage and " persisted in being happy." Before the 
war, he had published three volumes of verse, and now 
from that little home came forth many graceful, beauti- 
ful lyrics. This is part of his description of the song of 
the mocking-bird at night: — 

It rose in dazzling spirals overhead, 

Whence to wild sweetness wed, 

Poured marvellous melodies, silvery trill on trill : 

The very leaves grew still 

On the charmed trees to hearken; while for me, 

Heart-trilled to ecstasy, 

I followed — followed the bright shape that flew, 

Still circling up the blue, 

Till as a fountain that has reached its height. 

Falls back in sprays of light 

Slowly dissolved, so that enrapturing lay 

Divinely melts away 

Through tremulous spaces to a music-mist, 

Soon by the fitful breeze 

How gently kissed 
Into remote and tender silences. 

He wrote narrative verse, but was especially successful 
in the sonnet, with its harassing restrictions and limita- 
tions. Hayne's writings have one charm that those of 
greater poets often lack ; his personality gleams through 
them. He trusts us with his sorrows and his joys. He 
writes of the father whom he never saw, of the dear son 
" Will," of whom he says : — 

We roam the hills together, 

In the golden summer weather, 
Wm and I. 

He writes of his wife's "bonny brown hand," — 

The hand that holds an honest heart, and rules a happy hearth 



1829-1867] THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 367 

He writes of the majestic pine against which his poet 
friend laid his weary head. In whatever he writes, he 
shows himself not only a poet, but also a sincere and 
lovable man. 

44. Henry Timrod, 1829-1867. The friend who 
leaned against the pine was Henry Timrod. Their 
friendship began in the days when " Harry " passed 
under his desk a slate full of his own verses. Life was 
hard for the young poet. Lack of funds broke off his 
college course, and for many years he acted as tutor in 
various families. In i860 a little volume of his poems 
was brought out in Boston by Ticknor and Fields. It 
was spoken of kindly — and that was all. Then came 
the war, and such poverty that he wrote of his verse, " I 
would consign every line of it to eternal oblivion, for — 
one hundred dollars in hand ! " 

Timrod writes in many tones. He is sometimes 
strong, as in The Cotton Boll; sometimes light and 
graceful, as in Baby s Aj^r, wherein the age is counted 
by flowers, a different flower for each week. This 
ends : — 

But soon — so grave, and deep, and wise 
The meaning grows in Baby's eyes, 
So very deep for Baby's age — 
We think to date a week with sage. 

Sometimes he rises to noble heights, as in his descrip- 
tion of the poet, at least one stanza of which is not 
unworthy of Tennyson : — 

And he must be as arm^d warrior strong, 

And he must be as gentle as a girl. 
And he must front, and sometimes suffer wrong. 

With brow unbent, and lip untaught to curl; 
For wrath, and scorn, and pride, however just, 
Fill the clear spirit's eyes with earthly dust. 



368 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1809-1849 

In whatever tone he writes, there is sincerity, true love 
of nature, and a frequent flash of poetic expression, that 
make us dream pleasant dreams of what a little money 
and a little leisure might have brought from his pen. 

45. Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849. Another Southern 
writer, in some respects the greatest of all, was Edgar 
Allan Poe. He was left an orphan, and was taken into 
the family of a wealthy merchant of Baltimore named 
Allan. He was somewhat wild in college, and was 
brought home and put to work in Mr. Allan's office. 
He ran away, joined the army under an assumed name, 
was received at West Point through Mr. Allan's influ- 
ence, but later discharged for neglect of his duties. Mr. 
Allan refused any further assistance, and Poe set to work 
to support himself by his pen. In the midst of poverty 
he married a beautiful young cousin whom he loved 
devotedly. He wrote a few poems and much prose. 
He held various editorial positions ; he filled them most 
acceptably, but usually lost them through either his ex- 
treme sensitiveness or his use of stimulants. His child- 
wife died, and two years later Poe himself died. 

These are the facts in the life of Poe ; but his various 
biographers have put widely varying interpretations upon 
them. One pictures him, for instance, as a worthless 
drunkard ; another, probably more truly, as of a sensitive, 
poetic organization that was thrown into confusion by a 
single glass of liquor. 

As a literary man, Poe was first known by his prose, 
and especially by his reviews. He had a keen sense 
Poe's criu- of literary excellence, and recognized it at a 
cism. glance. He was utterly fearless — and fear- 

lessness was a new and badly needed quality in American 
criticism. On the other hand, he had not the foundation 
of wide reading and study necessary for criticism that is 



1809-1849] THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 369 

to abide ; and, worse than that, he was not great enough 
to be fair to the man whom he disHked or of whom he 
was jealous. His most valuable prose is his poe's 
tales, for here he is a master. They are well ^^®^' 
constructed and the plot is well developed ; every sen- 
tence, every word, counts toward the climax. That is 
the more mechanical part of the work ; but Poe's power 
goes much further. He has a marvellous ability to make 
a story "real." He brings this about sometimes in De- 
foe's fashion, by throwing himself into the place of the 
character in hand and thinking what he would do in 
such a position ; sometimes by noting and emphasizing 
some significant detail, as, for instance, in The Cask of 
Amontillado. Here he mentions three times the web- 
work of nitre on the walls that proves their fearful depth 
below the river bed, and the victim's consequent hope- 
lessness of rescue. Sometimes the opening sentence 
puts us into the mood of the story, so that, before it is 
fairly begun, an atmosphere has been provided that lends 
its own coloring to every detail. For instance, the first 
sentence of The Fall of the House of Usher is : — 

"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day 
in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppres- 
sively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on 
horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, 
and at length found myself, as the shades of evening 
drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher." 

Here is the keynote of the story, and we are pre- 
pared for sadness and gloom. The unusual expressions, 
"soundless day" and "singularly dreary," hint at some 
mystery. The second sentence increases these feelings ; 
and with each additional phrase the gloom and sadness 
become more dense. 

No one knows better than Poe how to work up to a 



370 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1809-1849 

climax of horror, and then to intensify its awfulness 
by dropping in some contrasting detail. In The Cask of 
Amontillado, for instance, the false friend, in his carnival 
dress of motley with cap and bells, is chained and then 
walled up in the masonry that is to become his living 
tomb. A single aperture remains. Through this the 
avenger thrusts his torch and lets it fall. Poe says, 
"There came forth in return only a jingling of bells." 
The awful death that lies before the false friend grows 
doubly horrible at this suggestion of the merriment of 
the carnival. 

Poe's poetry is on the fascinating borderland where 
poetry and music meet. His poems are not fifty in num- 
Poe's ber, and many of them are but a few lines in 

Poetry. length. The two that are best known are The 
Bells, a wonderfully beautiful expression of feeling 
through the mere sound of words, and The Raven. Poe 
has left a cold-blooded account of the " manufacture " 
of this latter poem. He declares that he chose beauty 
for the atmosphere, and that beauty excites the sensitive 
to tears ; therefore he decided to write of melancholy. 
The most beautiful thing is a beautiful woman, the most 
melancholy is death ; therefore he writes of the death 
of a beautiful woman. So with the refrain. O is the 
most sonorous vowel, and when joined with r is capa- 
ble of "protracted emphasis;" therefore he fixes upon 
"Nevermore." He may be believed or disbelieved; 
but in The Raven, as in whatever else he writes, there 
is a weird and marvellous music. To him, everything 
poetical could be interpreted by sound ; he said he 
" could distinctly hear the sound of the darkness as it 
stole over the horizon." He has a way of repeating a 
phrase with some slight change, as if he could not bear 
to leave it. Thus in Annabel Lee he writes : — 



1842-1881] THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 3/1 

But our love it was stronger by far than the love 

Of those who were older than we — 

Of many far wiser than we — 
And neither the angels in heaven above, 

Nor the demons down under the sea, 
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. 

This repetition is even more marked in Ulaliime : — ■ 

The leaves they were crisped and sere — 
The leaves they were withering and sere. 

These phrases cling to the memory of the reader as if 
they were strains of music. We find ourselves saying 
them over and over. It is not easy to analyze the fas- 
cination of such verse, but it has fascination. Many 
years ago, when Poe was a young man, Higginson heard 
him read his mystic Al Aaraaf. He says, " In walking 
back to Cambridge my comrades and I felt that we had 
been under the spell of some wizard." When we look 
in the poems of Poe for the "high seriousness" that 
Matthew Arnold names as one of the marks of the best 
poetry, it cannot be found ; but in the power to express 
a mood, a feeling, by the mere sound of words, Poe has 
no rival. 

46. Sidney Lanier, 1842-1881. A few years after 
the death of Poe, a Southern college boy was earnestly 
demanding of himself, " What am I fit for .-* " He had 
musical genius, not merely the facility that can tinkle out 
tunes on various instruments, but deep, strong love of 
music and rare ability to produce music. His father, a 
lawyer of Macon, Georgia, felt that to be a musician 
was rather small business ; and his son had yielded to 
this belief so far as the genius within him would per- 
mit. Another talent had this rarely gifted boy, — for 
l)oetry. 



372 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1842-1881 

The Civil War was a harsh master for such a spirit, 
but in its first days he enlisted in the Confederate army, 
and saw some terrible fighting. More than three years 
later he was taken prisoner — he and his flute. After 
five months they were released. For sixteen years he 
taught, he read, he wrote, he lectured at Johns Hopkins 
University and elsewhere, and for several winters he played 
first flute in the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Balti- 
more. All those years he was in a constant struggle with 
consumption and poverty. Sometimes for many months 
he could do nothing but suffer. Between the attacks of 
illness he did a large amount of literary work. It was 
not always the kind of writing that he was longing to do, 
— some of it would in other hands have been nothing but 
Lanier's hack work ; but with a spirit like Lanier's there 
Prose. could be no such thing as hack work, for he 

threw such talent into it, such pleasure in using the pen, 
that at his touch it became literature. He edited Froissart 
and other chronicles of long ago, and he wrote a novel. 
He wrote also on the development of the novel, on the 
science of English verse, on the relations of poetry and 
music, and on Shakespeare and his forerunners. He 
was always a student, and always original. 

Lanier had the lofty conscientiousness of a great poet. 
Some truth underlies each of his poems, whether it is 
the simple — and profound — Ballad of the Trees and 
the Master, — 

Into the woods my Master went. 

Clean forspent, forspent. 

Into the woods my Master came, 

Forspent with love and shame. 

But the olives they were not blind to Him; 

The little gray leaves were kind to Him : 

The thorn tree had a mind to Him 

When into the woods He came. 



1842-1881] THE SOUTHERN WRITERS Z7'^ 

Out of the woods my Master went, 

And He was well content. 

Out of the woods my Master came, 

Content with death and shame. 

When Death and Shame would woo Him last, 

From under the trees they drew Him last : 

' T was on a tree they slew Him — last 

When out of the woods He came, — 

the nobly rhythmical Marshes of Glyrm, or The Song of 
the Chattahoochee, — 

All down the hills of Habersham, 

All through the valleys of Hall, 
The rushes cried Abide, abide, 
The willful water weeds held me thrall, 
The laving laurel turned my tide, 
The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay, 
The dewberry dipped for to work delay, 
And the little weeds sighed Abide, abide, 

Here in the hills of Habershatn, 

Here in the valleys of Hall. 

Poe had a melody of unearthly sweetness, but little 
basis of thought ; Lanier had a richer, if less bewitching 
melody, and thought. He had the balance, the self- 
Lanier's control, in which Poe was lacking. It is almost 
Poetry. ^ s>wxQ. test of any kind of greatness if its 
achievements carry with them an overtone that murmurs, 
"The man is greater than his deed. He could do more 
than he has ever done." We do not feel this in Poe ; 
we do feel it in Lanier. In his rare combination of 
Southern richness with Northern restraint, he will ever 
be an inspiration to the poetry that must arise from the 
luxuriant land of the South. He is not only the greatest 
Southern poet ; he is one of the greatest poets that our 
country has produced. " How I long to sing a thou- 
sand various songs that oppress me unsung ! " he wrote; 



374 AMERICA'S LITERATURE [1815-1865 

and no lover of poetry can turn the last leaf of his single 
volume of verse without an earnest wish that a longer 
life had permitted his desire to be gratified. 

F. The Southern Writers 

William Wirt Henry Timrod 

William Gilmore Simms Edgar Allan Poe 

Paul Hamilton Hayne Sidney Lanier 

SUMMARY 

There was little writing in the South, because of the lack 
of large cities, the small home market for modern books, 
and the tendencies of plantation life toward statesmanship 
and oratory rather than literary composition. The best of 
this scattered writing was done by Wirt. Later, Simms, the 
" Cooper of the South," published many volumes of poems 
and many novels. The Yemassee is regarded as his best 
novel. He is Cooper's superior in the delineation of women. 
His novels give much information about colonial life in the 
South. Hayne, the " poet-laureate of the South," lost his 
property by the war. He wrote many beautiful poems, and 
was especially successful in the sonnet. His personality 
gleams through his writings. Henry Timrod had a hard 
struggle with poverty. He writes in many tones with sincerity, 
love of nature, and frequent flashes of poetic expression. 
The facts in Poe's life have been variously interpreted. He 
first became known through his reviews. His tales are his 
most valuable prose. They are well constructed and remark- 
ably realistic. His poetry is on the borderland of poetry 
and music. He wrote fewer than fifty poems. He has left 
a doubtfully true account of his manufacture of The Raven. 
There is a fascinating music in whatever he writes. He has 
not the " high seriousness " of the great poet, but in the 
power to express feeling by the mere sound of the words 
he has no rival. Lanier had musical and poetical genius. 



181S-1865] THE SOUTHERN WRITERS 375 

He enlisted in the Confederate army. At the close of the 
war, he taught, lectured, read, wrote, played first flute in 
the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He struggled with ill 
health and narrow means. He did much editing, wrote on 
the development of the novel, on the science of English verse, 
on the relations of poetry and music, and on Shakespeare and 
his forerunners. His poems are rarely without a rich melody, 
and never without underlying truth. It proves his genius 
that he ever seemed greater than his writings. He is one of 
our greatest poets 



CHAPTER IX 

THE NATIONAL PERIOD, 1815— 

II. LATER YEARS, 1865— 

47. Present literary activity. Since the war an 
enormous amount of printed matter has been produced. 
We can hardly be said to have a Hterary centre, for no 
sooner has one place begun to manifest its right to the 
title than, behold, some remarkably good work appears 
in quite another quarter. The whole country seems 
to have taken its pen in hand. Statesman, financier, 
farmer, general, lawyer, minister, actor, city girl, country 
girl, college boy, — everybody is writing. The result 
of this literary activity is entirely too near us for a 
final decision as to its merits, and any criticism pro- 
nounced upon it ought to have the foot-note, " At least, 
so it seems at present." 

48. Fiction. The lion's share of this printed matter, 
in bulk, at any rate, falls under the heading of fiction. 
Its distinguishing trait is realism, and the apostles of real- 
ism are William Dean Howells (1837-1920) and Henry 
James (i 843-1916). What they write is not thrilling, but 
the way they write it has charmed thousands of read- 
American ers. Wit, humor, and grace of style are the 
realism. qualities of their productions that are seldom 
lacking. They write of commonplace people ; but there 
is a certain restful charm in reading of the behavior of 
ordinary mortals under ordinary circumstances. How- 
ells lays the scenes of most of his novels on this side 
of the ocean ; James generally lays his scenes abroad- 



LATER YEARS 377 

Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909) sometimes brings 
his characters into America, but the scenes of his 
best novels are laid elsewhere. Edward Everett Hale 
(1822-1909) is such a master of realism that his Man 
zvithout a Coiintfy persuaded thousands that it was the 
chronicle of an actual and unjustifiable proceeding. 
And there is Frank Richard Stockton (i 834-1902), 
whose realism-with-a-screw-loose has given us most 
inimitable absurdities. General Lew Wallace (1827- 
1905), "after serving in two wars, practicing law, and in- 
cidentally acting as governor of New Mexico and United 
States minister to Turkey, became an author, and his 
Ben Hur met with almost unprecedented success, both 
as novel and as drama." 

Our country is so large and manners of life vary so 
widely in its different regions that an American novel 
may have all the advantages of realism and yet be as 
truly romantic to three fourths of its readers as the wild- 
est dreams of the romanticists. George Washington 
Cable (1844- ) has painted in The Grandissimes 2ind 
other works a fascinating picture of Creole life in New 
Orleans. Richard Malcolm Johnston (1822- 1898) tells 
us of the "Crackers" of Georgia; John Esten Cooke 
(i 830-1866), most of whose work belongs to a somewhat 
earlier period, has written of the days when chivalry 
was in flower in the Old Dominion ; Thomas Nelson Page 
(1853- ) brings before us the negro slave of Virginia, 
with his picturesque dialect, his devotion to "the fam- 
bly," and his notions of things visible and invisible; 
Joel Chandler Harris (1848- 1908) has the honor Locaigoi„ 
of contributing a new character. Uncle Retnus, inAmeri- 
to the world of literature ; Mary Noailles Mur- °" "''"°"- 
free (1850- ), whose very publishers long believed her 
to be "Mr. Charles Egbert Craddock," has almost the 



378 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

literary monoply of the mountainous regions of Tennes- 
see. In this the regions are fortunate, for no gleam of 
beauty, no trait of character, escapes her keen eye. 
James Lane Allen (1850- ) has taken as his field his 
own state of Kentucky. He is as realistic as Henry 
James, but his realism is softened and beautified by a 
delicate and poetic grace. Edward Eggleston's (1837- 
1902) Hoosier Schoolmaster revealed the literary possi- 
bilities of southern Indiana in pioneer days. Dr. Silas 
Weir Mitchell (i 829-1914), like Holmes, won honors in 
both medicine and literature. YWs Hugh IVy 71 n c \)\c\.uxcs 
Philadelphia in the days of the Revolution. Several 
writers have pictured life in New England. Among 
them is John Townsend Trowbridge (1827-1916) with his 
Neighbor Jackivood 2iX\Ci other stories. Mary E. Wilkins 
Freeman (1862- ) writes interesting stories, but al- 
most invariably of the exceptional characters. Sarah 
Orne Jewett (i 849-1909), with rare grace and humor 
and finer delicacy of touch, has gone far beyond surface 
Women peculiarities, and has found in the most every- 
story- day people some gleam of poetry, some shadow 

miters. ^^ pathos. Alice Brown (1857- ) writes 
frequently and charmingly of the unusual ; but with her 
the unusual is the natural manifestation of some typical 
quality. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (1844-1911) in 
1866 ventured to treat our notions of heaven in some- 
what realistic fashion in Gates Ajar. She has proved in 
many volumes her knowledge of the New England 
woman. Some of her best later work has been in the line 
of the short story, as, for instance, her Jonathan and 
David. Rose Terry Cooke (i 827-1 892) has found the 
humor which is thinly veiled by the New P^ngiand aus- 
terity. The stories of Kate Douglas Wiggin Riggs 
(i^^57~ ) 'ire marked by a keen sense of humor and 




LOUISA M. ALCOTT 
SARAH ORNE JEWETT 
ALICE BROWN 



HELEN HUNT JACKSON MARY NOAILLES MURFREH 

HARRIET BEECHKR STOWE ELIZABETH STUART I'HHLl'S WARD 

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN RIGGS AGNES REl'I'LIER 



380 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

sparkle with vivid bits of description. The early days of 
California have been pictured by Helen Hunt Jackson 
(1831-1885) in Ramona, a novel of Indian life, and in 
her earlier, but charming poetic work. Mary Hallock 
Foote (1847- ) has sympathetically interpreted with 
both brush and pen the life of the mining camp of what 
used to be the "far West." Frances Hodgson Burnett 
(1849- ) won her first popularity by That Lass d 
Lowries, which pictures life in the Lancashire districts 
of England. During the last few years of the nine- 
teenth century and the first two decades of the twen- 
tieth, many new novelists have come forward. Ruth 
McEnery Stuart (i 856-191 7) has written delightfully of 
Southern life and people. Her " Sonny" is an entirely 
new character in literature. Booth Tarkington (1869- 
), The Gentleman from Indiana, to borrow the name 
of his first book, shows the political life of a small town. 
He has a sense of humor, he knows that whereof he writes, 
and he can make a novel thoughtful and charming at the 
same time — no small gift. The Gentleman from Indi- 
ana came out in 1899, the year in which Winston Church- 
ill published Richard Carvel, a historical romance. 
His later books are vivid delineations of American life, 
and his subjects are those on which people are thinking 
at the moment of their publication. Mary Johnston's 
(1870- ) To Have and to Hold is a brilliant presen- 
tation of an episode in the colonial history of Virginia. 
Her later work has often shown a broader outlook, but 
suffers no loss of picturesque effect. Jack London 
(1876-1916), sailor, tramp, seal hunter, journalist, lec- 
turer, and war correspondent, wrote many stories full of 
fresh air and energy, but it can hardly be doubted that 
he will live longest in his Call of the Wild, one of the 
best dog stories ever written. In 1904, Mrs. Margaret 



LATER YEARS 381 

Wade Deland (1857- ) published three books, two 
dehghtful volumes of tales of "Old Chester," and JoJin 

Ward, Preacher, a story recording the meeting of the 
irresistible force and the immovable body. Her Iron 

Woman is a sympathetic mingling of the strong and the 
pathetic. Mrs. Edith Wharton (1862- ) first won 
general attention by her Honse of Mirth, a novel of in- 
tensity and with a big lesson, if the right people would 
only take it to heart. Her EtJian Fronie, a story of ex- 
piation, has been called a "gray masterpiece." Henry 
Sydnor Harrison (1880- ) tried his pen on an anony- 
mous novel, Captivating Mary Carstairs, and then wrote 
Queeei, a powerful and original story which develops 
naturally and inevitably. His V. V.'s Eyes is equally 
powerful and at the same time winning and often re- 
freshingly humorous. During the last few years the his- 
torical novel and the one-character tale were at first the 
favorites; but there is an increasing demand for novels 
with a purpose — which is all very well provided the pur- 
pose does not overburden the story. During the last 
few years the popular favor has swung between the his- 
torical novel and the one-character tale; but the fiction, 
whether of the one class or the other, that has had the 
largest sale has laid its scenes in America and has been 
written by American authors. 

American fiction has become especially strong in the 
short story; not merely the story which is short, but 
the story which differs from the tale in some- The short 
what the same way as the farce differs from the ^'^'"^^ 
play, namely, that its interest centres in the situation 
rather than in a series of incidents which usually develop 
a plot. Cranford, for instance, is a tale. It pictures 
the life of a whole village, and is full of incidents. 
Stockton's The Lady or the Tiger is a short story; 



382 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

it gives no incidents, and no more detail than is neces- 
sary to explain the peculiar situation of the princess. 
It is a single series of links picked out of a broad net- 
work. A tale is a field ; a short story is a narrow path 
running through the field. The short story, with its 
single aim, its determination to make every word count 
toward that aim, its rigid economy of materials, its sure 
and rapid progress, has proved most acceptable to our 
time-saving and swiftly-moving nation. Most of our 
short stories appear first in magazines, and have a much 
wider range of subject than the novel. The possibility 
of their coming out with little delay tends to their being 
written on topics of the moment ; therefore since the 
breaking out of the European war large numbers of war 
stories have been produced. 

Interest in the drama is increasing rapidly. Popular 
novels, fairy tales, children's history lessons are all put 
into dramatic form. The "little theatres," as they are 
called, are encouraging the makers of plays to dramatize 
the life about their own homes, and in this way build up 
a national drama. 

49. Poetry. The writers of the last fifty years have 
had an immense advantage in the existence of the four 
monthlies. The Atlantic, Harper s, Scribners, and The 
Century, for these magazines have provided what was so 
needed in earlier days, — a generous opportunity to find 
one's audience. They have been of special value to the 
poets, and the last half-century has given us much 
poetry. Not all of it is of the kind that makes its author's 
name immortal; but it would not be difficult to count at 
least a score of Americans who in these latter days have 
written poems that arc of real merit. 

50. Bayard Taylor, 1825-1878. Eight years after 
Bryant published Thanatopsis, two of these later poets. 



LATER YEARS 383 

Taylor and Stoddard, were l^orn. Bayard Taylor began 
life as a country boy who wanted to travel. He wan- 
dered over Europe, paying his way sometimes by a letter 
to some New York paper, sometimes by a morning in 
the hayfield. His account of these wanderings, ^^^^^ 
Vteztfs Afoot, was so boyish, so honest, enthu- Afoot 
siastic, and appreciative, that it was a delight ^^*®" 
to look at the world through his eyes ; and the young 
man of twenty-one found that he had secured his 
audience. He continued to wander and to write about 
his wanderings. He wrote novels also; but, save for the 
money that this work brought him, he put little value 
upon it. Poetic fame was his ambition, and he poems of 
won it in generous measure. Wis Poems of the the orient, 
Orient is wonderfully fervid and intense. Some 
of these poems contain lines that are as haunting as 
Poe's. Such is the refrain to his Bedouin Song: — 

From the desert I come to thee 

On a stallion shod with fire ; 
And the winds are left behind 

In the speed of my desire. 
Under thy window I stand, 

And the midnight hears my cry ! 
I love thee, I love but thee, 
With a love that shall not die 
Till the sun grows cold, 
And the stars are old, 
And the leaves of the Judgment 
Book unfold ! 

Another favorite is his Song of the Camp, with its 
famous lines, — 

Each heart recalled a different name, 
But all sang "Annie Laurie." 

He wrote Home Pastorals (1875), ballads of home life in 
Pennsylvania; several dramatic poems; and a most valu- 



384 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

able translation of Faust (i 870-1 871). Bayard Taylor 
seems likely to attain his clearest wish, — to be remem- 
bered by his poetry rather than his prose. 

51. Richard Henry Stoddard, 1825-1903. One of 
Taylor's oldest and best beloved friends was Richard 
Henry Stoddard, a young ironworker. He had hard 
labor and long hours ; but he managed to do a vast 
amount of reading and thinking, and he had much to 
contribute to this friendship. He held no college de- 
gree, but he knew the best English poetry and was an 
excellent critic. He, too, was a poet. In a few years he 
published a volume of poems; but poetry brought little 
gold, and by Hawthorne's aid he secured a position in 
the Custom House. He did much reviewing and edit- 
ing ; but poetry was nearest to his heart. There is a 
certain simplicity and finish about his poems that is 
most winning. The following is a special favorite : — 

The sky is a drinking cup, 

That was overturned of old ; 
And it pours in the eyes of men 

Its wine of airy gold. 

We drink that wine all day, 
Till the last drop is drained up. 

And are lighted off to bed 
By the jewels in the cup ! 

52. Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1833-1908. Another 
poet and critic is Edmund Clarence Stedman. He reversed 
the usual order, and, instead of going from business to 
poetry, he went from poetry to business, and became a 
broker. When he had won success in Wall Street, he 
returned to poetry with an easy mind. He has a wide 
knowledge of literature, and is a keen and appreciative 
critic. Moreover, he can criticise his own work as well 
as that of other people. He has written many New 



LATER YEARS 385 

England idylls, man}^ war lyrics, and many occasional 
poems. Everything is well proportioned and exquisitely 
finished, but sometimes we miss warmth and fire. It is 
like being struck by a cool wind to come from Taylor's 
Bedouin Song to Stedman's Song from a Drama: — 

Thou art mine, thou hast given thy word; 

Close, close in my arms thou art clinging; 

Alone for my ear thou art singing 
A song which no stranger has heard : 
But afar from me yet, like a bird, 
Thy soul, in some region unstirred, 

On its mystical circuit is winging. 

One of his poems that no one who has read it can for- 
get is The Discoverer ; graceful, tender, with somewhat 
of Matthew Arnold's Greek restraint, and so carefully 
polished that it seems simple and natural. This be- 
gins : — 

I have a little kinsman 
Whose earthly summers are but three, 

And yet a voyager is he 

Greater than Drake or Frobisher, 

Than all their peers together! 

He is a brave discoverer, 

And, far beyond the tether 

Of them who seek the frozen Pole, 
Has sailed where the noiseless surges roll. 

Ay, he has travelled whither 

A winged pilot steered his bark 

Through the portals of the dark, 

Past hoary Mimir's well and tree, 
Across the unknown sea. 

53. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1836-1907. Thonias 
Bailey Aldrich is counted with the New York group 
of poets by virtue of his fifteen years' residence in the 
metropolis. His tender little poem on the death of a 
child, Baby Bell, beginning — 



386 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

Have you not heard the poets tell 
How came the dainty Baby Bell 
Into this world of ours? 

touched the sympathetic American heart and won him 
the name of poet. If he had been a sculptor, he would 
have engraved cameos, so exquisitely finished is every- 
thing that he touches. The thought that some writers 
would expand into a volume of philosophy or a romance 
of mysticism, he was satisfied to condense into a lyric, as 
in his Identity: — 

Somewhere — in desolate wind-swept space — 

In Twilight-land — in No-man's-land — 
Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, 

And bade each other stand. 
" And who are you ? " cried one a-gape, 

Shuddering in the gloaming light. 
■• I know not," said the second Shape, 
" I only died last night ! " 
In 1870 Aid rich returned to Boston. He then edited 
Every Saturday and later The Atlantic MontJdy. He 
published several volumes of poems and some charm- 
Mariorie i^g stories. The most original of the latter 
Daw. 1873. is the dclicious Marjorie Daw, which won 
such popularity as to verify the favorite dictum of Bar- 
num, "People like to be humbugged." This story is 
marked by the same artistic workmanship and nicety of 
finish that beautifies whatever Aldrich touched. One 
cannot imagine him allowing a line to go into print that 
was in any degree less perfect than he could make it. 

54. Francis Bret Harte, 1839-1902. In 1868 a 
new voice came from the Pacific coast. The Overland 
Monthly had been founded, and Francis Bret Harte had 
become its editor. He had gone from Albany condensed 
to California, had tried preaching and mining. Novels, 
had written a few poems, and also Condensed 



LATER YEARS 387 

Novels, an irreverent and wisely critical parody on the 
works of various authors whom he had been taught to 
admire. In his second month of office he pub- The Luck 
lished The Luck of Roaring; Camp. This was "'^^"p"^"^ 
followed by other stories and poems, and in a isea. 
twinkling he was a famous man. The flush of novelty 
has passed, and he is no longer hailed as the Ameri- 
can laureate ; but no one can help seeing that within 
his own limits he is a master. When he takes his 
pen, the life of the mining camp stands before us in 
bold outline. He is a very missionary of light to those 
who think there is no goodness beyond their own little 
circle. In How Santa Clans Came to Simpson's Bar, 
for instance, the dirty little boy with " fevier. And 
childblains. And roomatiz," gets out of bed to show to 
the rough men who are his visitors a hospitality which 
is genuine if somewhat soiled ; and the roughest of them 
all gallops away on a dare-devil ride over ragged moun- 
tains and through swollen rivers to find a city and a toy- 
shop, because he has overheard the sick child asking his 
father what " Chrismiss" is, and the question has touched 
some childhood memories of his own. Harte's one text 
in both prose and poetry is that in every child there is 
some bit of simple faith, and that in the wildest, rough- 
est, most desperate of men there is some good. Several 
of his poems are exceedingly beautiful lyrics ; those that 
are called "characteristic," because written in the line 
wherein he made his first fame, are vivid pictures of the 
mining camp, — coarse, but hardly vulgar, and with a 
never-failing touch of human sympathy and warm con- 
fidence in human nature. 

55. Walt Whitman, 1819-1892. A few years ago, 
an old man with long white hair and beard, gray vest, 
gray coat, and a broad white collar well opened in front, 



388 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

walked slowly and with some difficulty to an armchair 
that stood on a lecture platform in Camden, New Jersey. 
He spoke of Lincoln, and at the end of the address 
he said half shyly : " My hour is nearly gone, but I fre- 
quently close such remarks by reading a little piece I 
have written — a little piece, it takes only two or three 
minutes — it is a little poem, • O Captain ! My Cap- 
tain ! ' " This is what he read : — 

O Captain ! my Captain ! our fearful trip is done, 
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; 
But O heart ! heart ! heart ; 

But O the bleeding drops of red. 
Where on the deck my Captain lies. 
Fallen cold and dead. 

O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 

Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills, 

For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths — for you the shores 

acrowding, 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; 
Here Captain ! dear father ! 
This arm beneath your head ! 

It is some dream that on the deck 
You 've fallen cold and dead. 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will. 
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; 
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells ! 
But I, with mournful tread. 

Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 



LATER YEARS 3^9 

This speaker was Walt Whitman. In 1855 he brought 
out his first volume of poems, Leaves of Grass. Seven 
years later he became the good angel of the leaves of 
army hospitals, writing a letter for one sirf- Grass, 
ferer, cheering another by a hearty greeting, ® ' 
leaving an orange or a piece of bright new scrip or a 
package of candy at bed after bed. Northerner or 
Southerner, it was the same to him as he went around, 
carrying out the little wishes that are so great in a sick 
man's eyes. A few years later he suffered from a par- 
tial paralysis. His last days were spent in a simple 
home near the Delaware, in Camden. 

The place of Walt Whitman as a poet is in dispute. 
Some look upon him as a "literary freak"; others as 
the mightiest poetical genius of America. He is capa- 
ble of writing such a gem as O Captain ! my Captain ! 
and also of foisting upon us such stuff as the following 
and calling it poetry : — 

The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors, old and 

new, 
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues. 

Whitman believed that a poet might write on all sub- 
jects, and that poetic form and rhythm should be 
avoided. Unfortunately for his theories, when he has 
most of real poetic passion, he is most inclined to use 
poetic rhythm. He writes some lists of details that are 
no more poetic than the catalogue of an auctioneer ; 
but he is capable of painting a vivid picture with the 
same despised tools, as in his Cavalry Crossing a Ford : — 

A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands. 
They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun, — hark 

to the musical clank, 
Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to 

drink. 



390 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person, a picture, 

the negligent rest on the saddles, 
Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the 

ford — while 
Scarlet and blue and snowy white. 
The guidon fJags flutter gayly in the wind. 

This is hardly more than an enumeration of details; but 
he has chosen and arranged them so well that he brings 
the moving picture before us better than even paint and 
canvas could do. When he persists in telling us unin- 
teresting facts that we do not care to be told, he is a writer 
of prose printed somewhat like poetry ; but when he 
allows a poetic thought to sweep him onward to a glory 
of poetic expression, he is a poet, and a poet of lofty rank. 
56. Minor Poets. It is especially difficult to select a 
few names from the long list of our minor poets, for the 
work of almost every one of them is marked by some 
appealing excellence of subject or of treatment. Celia 
Thaxter (i 835-1 894) is ever associated with the Isles of 
.Shoals, and, as Stedman says, " Her spraycy stanzas give 
us the dip of the sea-bird's wing, the foam and tangle of 
ocean." Lucy Larcom (i 826-1 893), too, was one of those 
who love the sea. The one of her poems that has perhaps 
touched the greatest number of hearts is Hannah Bind- 
ing Shoes, that glimpse into the life of the lonely woman 
of Marblehead with her pathetic question : — 
Is there from the fishers any news? 

John Hay (i 838-1905) forsook literature for the triumphs 
of a noble diplomacy, but not until he had shown his 
ability as biographer and as poet. The first readers of 
his/^//7' County Ballads were not quite certain that he was 
not a bit irreverent.; but they soon recognized the manli- 
ness of his sentiment, however audacious its expression 
might appear. Jones Very (1813-1880) is still winning 



LATER YEARS 39I 

an increasing number of friends by his graceful, delicate 
thought and crystalhne clearness of expression, h^vvard 
Rowland Sill (1841-1S87), though with few years of life 
and scanty leisure, made himself such an one as the king's 
son of his own Opportunity, who with the broken sword 

Saved a great cause tliat heroic day. 

His poems are marked by the insight which sees the 
difficulties of life and also the simple faith which bestows 
the courage to meet them and to look beyond them. 
James VVhitcomb Riley (1853-1916) has written many 
poems of pathos and beauty both in plain English and 
also in the " Hoosier dialect." Eugene Field (1850- 
1895) is a genial humorist, but he is best known through 
his verses for children, and will long be remembered for 
his Little Boy Blue and others of almost equal charm. 
Edith Matilda Thomas (1854- ) has written many 
attractive lyrics of forest and meadow, sweet with. the 
breath of the country and of exquisite finish. The po- 
etical ability of Mrs. Josephine Preston Peabody Marks 
was recognized in 1909 by the bestowal of the Stratford- 
on-Avon prize upon her drama The Piper. Richard 
Watson Gilder (1844- 1909), greatest of the New York 
group, ever charms us by the delicate music of his 
verse. His finish is so artistic, so flawless, that some- 
times the first reading of one of his poems does not re- 
veal to us the strength of feeling half hidden by the be- 
witching gleams of its beauty. Although we can boast 
of no poet of the first rank among these later writers, 
yet poetic ability is so widely distributed among Ameri- 
can authors and so much of its product is of excellence 
that we certainly have reason to expect a rapid progress 
to some worthy manifestation before many years of the 
twentieth century shall have passed. 



392 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

We hear much about vers libre and about the "new 
verse." Vers libre, or free verse, is a form of writing 
wherein the rhythm, created by arrangement of stressed 
and unstressed syllables, is "free" for the author to vary 
in whatever manner he thinks will best express his 
thought. The "new poetry," as it is called, stands for a 
movement to break away from everything that has come 
to be looked upon as the peculiar property of poetry, 
whether it be subject, vocabulary, or metre. It aims at 
coming close to life, and regards no subject as in itself 
uniit for a poem. In diction it refuses to be limited to 
the old poetic phrases and seeks to express itself in the 
language of every day. An especially strong note of this 
poetry is its individuality. It must portray just what the 
writer sees and feels, and nothing more, and it must be in 
his own words. He must not, like the Pre-Raphaelites, 
sea/ch for "stunning words for poetry," but he must use 
those that come naturally to his mind. " Life is growth 
and growth is change," wrote Lucy Larcom. "It is 
easier to differ from the great poets than to resemble 
them," said Walt Whitman. Whichever of these two 
quotations may be the more applicable, it is just as well to 
remember that composition printed in lines of unequal 
length may be poetry, or it may be what Howells so 
aptly calls "shredded prose." 

57. Humorous writings. There is no lack of hu- 
mor in the writings of Americans. Indeed, we are a 
Charles little inclined to look askance at an author 
^^i^y who manifests no sense of the humorous, and 

Warner, 

1829-1900. to feel that something is lacking in his men- 
tal make-up. The works of Irving, Holmes, Lowell, 
the charming essays of Warner, Mitchell, and Cur- 
tis, and the stories of Frank Stockton and others, are 
lighted up by humor on every page, sometimes k^en and 



LATER YEARS 393 

swift, sometimes graceful and poetic. These are humor- 
ists that make us smile. There are lesser humorists 
who make us laugh. Such was Charles Farrar Browne 
(1834-1867), " Artemus Ward," who wrote over his show, 
" You cannot expect to go in without paying your money, 
but you can pay your money without going in." Such 
was Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber (1814-1890), "Mrs. 
Partington," who "could desecrate a turkey better" if 
she " understood its anathema," and who thought " Men 
ought not to go to war, but admit their disputes to agita- 
tion." His fun depended almost entirely upon Lesser 
the misuse of words, Sheridan's old device in Humorists. 
" Mrs. Malaprop " of TJie Rivals. Such was David Ross 
Locke (1833-1888), "Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby," who 
was a political power in the years immediately following 
the Civil War. Henry Wheeler Shaw (1818-1885), 
"Josh Billings," gave plenty of good, substantial advice. 
" Blessed is he who kan pocket abuse, and feel that it iz 
no disgrace tew be bit bi a dog." — "Most everyone 
seems tew be willing to be a phool himself, but he can't 
bear to have enny boddy else one." — "It is better to 
kno less, than to kno so mutch that aint so." These are 
bits of the philosopher's wisdom. Finley Peter Dunne 
(1867- ), "Mr. Dooley, " discourses to his friend 
"Mr. Hinnissy" on all sorts of subjects political and 
social, and smilingly gives many a shrewd and friendly 
hit at the special humors of the day. Of athletics he 
says, " In my younger days 'twas not considhered rayspict- 
able f'r to be an athlete. An athlete was always a man 
that was not sthrong enough f'r wurruk. Fractions dhruv 
him fr'm school an' th' vagrancy laws dhruv him to base- 
ball. Ye can't have ye'er strenth an' use it too, Hinnissy. 
I gredge th' power I waste in walkin' upstairs or puttin' 
on me specs." Dunne, as well as Browne and Locke 



394 7\MERICA'S LITERATURE 

and Shaw, depended in part upon absurdities of spelling 
to attract attention, a questionable resort save where, as 
in the Biglozv Papers, it helps to bring a character before 
us. American humor is accused, and sometimes with 
justice, of depending upon exaggeration and irreverence. 
This humor has, nevertheless, a solid basis of shrewdness 
and good sense ; and, however crooked its spelling may be, 
it always goes straight to the point. Another character- 
istic quality is that in the "good stories " that are copied 
from one end of the land to the other, the hero does not 
get the better of the "other man" because the other 
man is a fool, but because he himself is bright. 

Our most famous humorist is Samuel Langhorne 
Samuel Clemens, or "Mark Twain." He was born in 
ciemeiir° Missouri, and became printer, pilot, miner, re- 
1835-1910. porter, editor, lecturer, and author. His Inno- 
cents Abroad, the record of his first European trip, set 
the whole country laughing. The " Innocents " wander 
through Europe. They distress guides and cicerones by 
refusing to make the ecstatic responses to which these 
tyrants are accustomed. When they are led to the bust 
of Columbus, they inquire with mock eagerness, " Is this 
the first time this gentleman was ever on a bust .-' " The 
one place where they deign to show " tumultuous emo- 
tion " is at the tomb of Adam, whom they call tearfully 
a "blood relation," "a distant one, but still a relation." 
The book is a witty satire on sham enthusiasm ; 

Innoconts -' 

Abroad, but it is morc than a satire, for Mark Twain 
^*^®" is not only a wit but a literary man. He can 

describe a scene like a poet if he chooses; he can paint 
a picture and he can make a character live. Among his 
many books are two that show close historical study, 
The Personal Memoirs of Joan of Arc and his ever de- 
lightful Tlie Prince and the Pauper. The latter is a tale 



LATER YEARS 395 

for children, wherein the prince exchanges clothes with 
the pauper, is put out of the palace grounds, and has 
many troubles before he comes to his own again, Mark 
Twain abominates shams of all sorts and looks upon them 
as proper targets for his artillery. His reputation as a 
humorist does not depend upon vagaries in spelling, or 
amusing deportment on the lecture platform. He "is a 
clear-sighted, original, honest man, and his fun has a solid 
foundation of good sense. 

58. History and biography. Our later historians have 
found their field in American chronicles. John Fiske 
(1842-1901) has made scholarly interpretations of our 
colonial records. Henry Adams (1838-1918), James 
Schouler (1839-1920), Thomas Wentworth Higginson 
(1823-191 1), Justin Winsor (1831-1897), Edward Eggle- 
ston ( 1 837-1902), James Ford Rhodes (1848- ), and 
others have written of various periods in the history of 
our country. Hubert Howe Bancroft's (1832-1918) His- 
tory of the Pacific Coast is a monumental work. John 
Bach Mc Master's (1852- ) History of the People of 
the United States is so full of vivid details that any stray 
paragraph is interesting reading. The general trend of 
the historical writing of to-day is toward people and their 
customs rather than bare annals of events. Besides his- 
tories, we have many volumes of reminiscences, and 
biographies without number. There is scarcely a mid- 
dle-aged or elderly man of any prominence who has not 
written his " Reminiscences," and hardly a dead man of 
any note whose " Life and Letters " has not been put on 
the market. Surely, the future student of American life 
and manners will not be without plentiful material. 
Among the biographers, James Parton (i 822-1 891) and 
Horace Elisha Scudder (i 838-1902) are of specially high 
rank. Scudder and Higginson deserve lasting gratitude, 



396 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

not only for the quality of their own work, but for their 
resolute opposition to all that is not of the best. The 
biography of the beasts and birds has not been forgotten. 
Many writers on nature are following in the footsteps of 
John Muir (1838-1914), who taught us to know the 
beauties and wonders of the West, and of John Burroughs 
(1837- ), a worthy disciple of Thoreau, who sees 
nature like a camera and describes her like a poet. 
Among these writers are Bradford Torrey (1843- ), 
Winthrop Packard (1862- ), Dallas Lore Sharp 

(1870- ), Enos A. Mills (1870- ), Clarence Hawkes, 
(1869- ), who sees only through the eyes of others, 
and Olive Thorne Miller (1831-1918), whose tender 
friendliness for animals is shown even in the titles of her 
books, Little Brothers of the Air and Little Folks in 
Feathers and Fur. The JonatJian Papers, by Elisabeth 
Woodbridge Morris (1870- ), are on the border line 
between story and natural history, but are always de- 
lightfully full of humor as well as the out of doors. 

59. The magazine article. In American prose there 
has been of late a somewhat remarkable development of 
the magazine article, which is in many respects the suc- 
cessor of the lecture platform of some years ago. Its 
aim is to present information. The subject may be an 
invention, a discovery, literary criticism, reminiscence, 
biography, a study of nature, an account of a war, — 
what you will; but it must be information. It must be 
brief and readable. Technicalities must be translated 
into common terms, and necessarily it must be the work 
of an expert. Written with care and signed with the 
name of the author, these articles become a progressive 
encyclopaedia of the advancement and thought of the age. 

Another type of magazine article is that written by 
Agnes Repplier, Samuel McChord Crothers, and others, 



LATER YEARS 



397 



which does not apparently aim at giving information but 
seems rather to be the familiar, half-confidential talk of 
a widely read per- 
son with a gift for 
delightful mono- 
logue. 

The scope of 
our magazine arti- 
cles suggests the 
breadth and diver- 
sity of pure scholar- 
ship in America. 
Among our best- 
known scholars are 
Charles Eliot Nor- 
ton (1827-1908), 
biographer and 
translator of Dante 
as well as critic of 
art ; Francis James 
Child (1825-1896), 
editor of English 
and Scottish Bal- 
lads ; Francis An- 
drew March (1825- 
191 1), our great- 
est Anglo-Saxon 
scholar ; *Felix 
Emanuel Schelling 
(1858- ), our 
best authority on 
the literature of the 
Elizabethan Age; Horace Howard Furness (i 833-191 2), 
the Shakespeare scholar; and Coirnelius Felton (1807- 




JOHN BURROUGHS 
A Bird in Sight 



398 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

1862), president of Harvard College, with his profound 
knowledge of Greek and the Greeks. 

60. Juvenile literature. Books for children have 
been published in enormous numbers. Even in the 
thirties they came out by scores in half a dozen cities 
of New England, in Cooperstown, Baltimore, New York, 
and elsewhere. In 1833 there was a "Juvenile Book- 
Store " in New York city. Many authors, Hawthorne, 
Mrs. Ward, Mark Twain, Trowbridge, and others have 
written books for children, but few have written for 
children alone. Among these latter, the principal ones 
, ^ .^ are Jacob Abbott and Louisa May Alcott. 

Jacob Alj- -^ ^ 

bott, 1803- More than two hundred books came from Ab- 
^®'^®" bott's pen,— the Rollo Books, the Lucy Books, 

and scores of simple histories and biographies. He is 
always interesting, for he always makes us want to know 
what is coming next. When, for instance, Rollo and 
Jennie and the kitten in the cage are left by mistake to 
cross the ocean by themselves, even a grown-up will turn 
the page with considerable interest to see how they man- 
age matters. Abbott never "writes down" to children. 
Even when he is giving them substantial moral advice, he 
writes as if he were talking with equals; and few child- 
ish readers of his books ever skip the little lectures. 

Louisa May Alcott was a Philadelphia girl who grew 

up in Concord. She wrote for twenty years without 

any special success. Then she published Little 

Louisa May -^ 

Alcott, Women, and this proved to be exactly what the 

Lmfe'^^^^ young folks wanted. It is a clean, fresh, "homey" 
Women, book about young people who are not too good 
^^^®" or too bright to be possible. They are not so 

angelic as Mrs. Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy ; but 
they are lovable and thoroughly human. A number of 
other books followed 'Little Womc72, all about sensible, 



LATER YEARS 399 

healthy-minddd boys and girls. Within the last fifty 
years or more many papers and magazines have been 
published for young people; such as Merry s Museum, 
Our Young Folks, Wide Awake, and St. Nicholas. The 
patriarch of them all is The Youth's Companion, whose 
rather priggish name suggests its antiquity. It was 
founded in 1827 by the father of N. P. Willis. In its 
fourscore years of life it has kept so perfectly in touch 
with the spirit of the age that to read its files is an in- 
teresting literary study. It seems a long way back from 
its realistic stories of to-day to the times when, for in- 
stance, a beggar — in a book — petitioned some children, 
" Please to bestow your charity on a poor blind man, 
who has no other means of subsistence but from your 
beneficence." The Youth's Companion has followed lit- 
erary fashions ; but throughout its long career its aim to 
be clean, wholesome, and interesting has never varied. 

61. Literary Progress. Counting from the very be- 
ginning, our literature is not yet three hundred years 
old. The American colonists landed on the shores of a 
new country. They had famine and sickness to endure, 
the savages and the wilderness to subdue. It is little 
wonder that for many decades the pen was rarely taken 
in hand save for what was regarded as necessity. What 
literary progress has been made may be seen by compar- 
ing Anne Bradstreet with Longfellow and Lanier, Cot- 
ton Mather with Parkman arid Fiske, the Nezv England 
Primer with the best of the scores of books for children 
that flood the market every autumn. We have little 
drama, but in fiction, poetry, humorous writings, essays, 
biography, history, and juvenile books, we produce an 
immense amount of composition. The pessimist wails 
that the motto of this composition is the old cry, "Bread 
and the games ! "-^that we demand only what will give 



400 



AMERICA'S LITERATURE 



us a working knowledge of a subject, or something that 
will amuse us. The optimist points to the high average 
of this writing, and to the fact that everybody reads. 
Many influences are at work ; who shall say what their 
resultant will be? One thing, however, is certain, — he 
who reads second-rate books is helping to lower the 
literary standard of his country, while he who lays down 
a poor book to read a good one is not only doing a thing 
that is for his own advantage, but is increasing the de- 
mand for good literature that almost invariably results 
in its production. 



The National Period 



[I. Later Years 

Writers of Fiction 



William Dean Howells 
Henry James 
Francis Marion Crawford 
Edward Everett Hale 
Frank Richard Stockton 
George Washington Cable 
Richard Malcolm Johnston 
John Esten Cooke 
Thomas Nelson Page 
Joel Chandler Harris 
Mary Noailles Murfree 
Edward Eggleston 
Silas Weir Mitchell 
John Townsend Trowbridge 
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman 
Sarah Orne Jewett 



Alice Brown 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward 

Rose Terry Cooke 

Kate Douglas Wiggin Riggs 

Helen Hunt Jackson 

Frances Hodgson Burnett 

Mary Hallock Foote 

James Lane Allen 

Ruth McEnery Stuart 

Booth Tarkington 

Winston Churchill 

Mary Johnston 

Jack London 

Margaret Deland 

Edith Wharton 

Henry Sydnor Harrison 



Bayard Taylor 
Richard Henry Stoddard 
Edmund Clarence Stedman 
Thomas Bailey Aldrich 
Francis Bret Harte 



Walt Whitman 
Celia Thaxter 
Lucy Larcom 
John Hay 
Jones Very 



LATER YEARS 



401 



Edward Rowland Siil Eugene Field 

Richard Watson Cilder Edith Matilda Thomas 

James Whitcomb Riley Josephine Preston Peabod)* 

Marks 

Humorists 

Oliver Wendell Holmes' Frank Richard Stockton 

James Russell Lowell Charles Farrar Browne 

Charles Dudley Warner Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber 

Donald Grant Mitchell David Ross Locke 

George William Curtis Henry Wheeler Shaw 

Samuel Langhorne Clemens 

Historians and Biographers 
John Fiske Hubert Howe Bancroft 

Henry Adams James Parton 

James Schouler Horace Elisha Scudder 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson Justin Winsor 
John Bach McMaster Edward Eggleston 

James Ford Rhodes 

Writers on Nature 
John Muir Dallas Lore Sharp 

Bradford Torrey Enos A. Mills 

Winthrop Packard Clarence Hawkes 

Naturalists Writers for Children , 

John Burroughs Jacob Abbott 

Olive Thorne Miller Louisa May Alcott 

SUMMARY 

Much literature has been produced since the war. The 
greater part of it is fiction. This is marked by realism, whose 
apostles are Howells and James. Many authors have revealed 
the literary possibilities of different parts of the country. The 
short story has been successfully developed. Historical 
novels and also the one-character novel are in favor. To the 
poets especially, the monthly magazines have been of much 
advantage. New York stands at present as our poetic cen- 
tre. Taylor, Stoddard, Stedman, and Aldrich are counted as 
part of the New York group. In 1868 Bret Harte was made 



402 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

famous by his stories and poems of the mining camp. Walt 
Wliitman is a poet of no humble rank. He believed in writ- 
ing on all subjects and in avoiding poetic form and rhythm, 
but is at his best when he forgets his theories. There is much 
humor in American writings. Of the lesser humorists, Browne, 
Locke, and Shaw depended in part upon incorrect spelling, 
and Shillaber upon a comical misuse of words. Our best 
humorist is Clemens. He is not only a wit, but also a man of 
much literary talent. His fun is always founded upon common 
sense. Most of our historians have chosen American history 
as their theme. Many volumes of biographies and reminis- 
cences have been published. The magazine article has taken 
the place of the lecture platform and the magazines form a 
progressive encyclopaedia of the advancement of the world. 
Great numbers of children's books have appeared. Among 
those authors that have written for children alone are Abbott 
and Miss Alcott. Many juvenile magazines and papers have 
been founded. The YoutJi's Companion is the oldest of all. 
Many literary influences are at work. What the resultant 
will be is still unknown. 



REFERENCES 
ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 

The following lists of books are of course not expected to 
be in any degree exhaustive. Their main object is, first, to 
suggest some few of the great number of criticisms and his- 
tories of literature that may be helpful to the student ; second, 
to tell where good editions of complete works or selections 
^rom some of the less accessible authors may be found. 

For general consultation throughout the course the follow- 
ing authorities are recommended : — 

For history, manners, and customs; Green's Short History 
of the English People, Gardiner's Student's History of England, 
Traill's Social England. For history of literature, Jusserand's 
Literary History of the English People fro7tt the Origins to the 
Renaissance. For history of the language, Lounsbury's History 
of the English Language. For biography, the Dictionary of 
National Biography is the standard work. See also the Eng- 
lish Men of Letters Series. Three works, Craik's English 
Prose Selections (5 vols.). Ward's English Poets (4 vols.), and 
Morley's English Writers (i i vols.), contain well-chosen selec- 
tions from the works of nearly all the authors named, and 
are almost a necessity to students who are not able to consult 
a large library. For separate texts the volumes of the Rive>'- 
side Literature Series are of special value because of their 
careful editing, good binding, and reasonable price. Cassell's 
NatioJial Library is also inexpensive and convenient. 

Centuries V-XIII 

Freeman's Old E?tglish History. 

Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons. 

Brooke's English Literature from the Beginning to the Norman 

Conquest. 
Brother Azarias's Development of English Literature. 



404 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 

Beowulf has been translated by C. G. Child {Riverside Literature 
Series), Garnett, Hall. Morris and Wyatt, and others. Much of 
the poem is given in Brooke's History of Early English Litera- 
ture and Morley's English Writers. Morley, vol. i, contains 
Widsith, passages from Caedmon and Cynewulf, and also speci- 
mens of the old Celtic literature. 

The Exeter Book has been translated by Gollancz (Early English 
Text Society) ; also by Benjamin Thorpe. 

Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are 
contained in one volume of Bohn's Antiquarian Library. 

Alfred's Orosius and Pauli's Life of Alfred are in one volume of 
Bohn's Antiquarian Library. Asser's Life of Alfred has been 
edited by A. S. Cook (Ginn). 

Extracts from the Or7n7ilum, the Ancren Riwle, the History of 
Geoffrey of Monmouth, Layamon's Brut, and King Horn (with 
glossary) are contained in Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early 
English, vol. i. 

Robin Hood Ballads are contained in Child's English and Scottish 
Popular Ballads. 

Geoffrey of Monmouth's History is contained in Giles's Six Old 
English Chronicles (Bohn's A ntiquarian Library.) 

Century XIV 

Jusserand's Wayfaring Life in the Fourteenth Century. 

Wright's History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in Eng- 
land during the Middle Ages. 

E. L. Cutts's Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages. 

Tudor Jenks's In the Days of Chaucer. 

Mandeville's Voyages and Travels, Cassell's National Library. 
Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English, vol. ii, con- 
tains selections from Mandeville, Langland, Wyclif, and Chaucer. 

Chaucer's Prologue, Knighfs Tale, and Nun's Priest's Tale (with 
glossary) are published in one volume of the Riverside Litera- 
ture Series. Lowell's Literary Essays, vol. iii, contains a delight- 
ful appreciation of Chaucer. 

Century XV 

Green's Town Life in the Fifteenth Century. 
Denton's England in the Fifteenth Century. 
Jusserand's Romance of a King's Life (James I). 



REFERENCES 405 

The King's Quair, edited by Skeat. 

Malory's Morte d'' Arthur, edited by Sommer and also by Gollancz. 
Morris and Skeat's Specimetis of Early English, vol. iii, contains 
selections from the King's Quair, the Morte d' Arthur, z.nd Cax- 
ton's Recuyell of the History es of Troye. 

Ballads. Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads is th:; 
great authority. Percy's Reliques. Gummere's Old English Bal- 
lads contains a well-chosen grqup and also a valuable introduc- 
tion. 

Mystery plays and Moralities. The York Plays, edited by Lucy 
Toulmin Smith ; The English Religious Drama, by K. L. Bates. 
English Miracle Plays, Moralities, and Interludes, by A. W. 
Pollard, contains Everyman. Morley's Specimens of the Pre- 
Shakespearian Drama contains The Foure P's, Ralph Roister 
Doister, Gorboduc, Campaspe, etc. 

Century XVI 

Ward's History of English Dramatic Literature {2, vols.). 

Lowell's Old English Dramatists. 

Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets (Bohn's Antiqua- 
rian Library). 

Saintsbury's History of Elizabethan Literatiire. 

E. P. Whipple's Literature of the Age of Elizabeth. 

Lowell's Literary Essays, vol. iv, contains his essay on Spenser ; 
in vol. iii is his essay on Shakespeare. 

Schelling's The English Chronicle Play. 

Schelling's The Queen s Progress. 

Jusserand's The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare. 

Goadby's The England of Shakespeare. 

Ordish's Shakespeare's London. 

Warner's The People for whom Shakespeare wrote. 

Tudor Jenks's In the Days of Shakespeare. 

Sidney Lee's A Life of William Shakespeare and Shakespeare's 
Life and Work. 

Rolfe's Shakespeare the Boy. 

Dowden's Shakespeare Primer. 

Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar. 

Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about 
the Time of Shakespeare contains Gorboduc, Tamburlaine, 
Edward II, The Rich Jew of Malta, Dr. Faustus, etc. The 



4o6 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 

Mermaid Series contains the best plays of Beaumont ana 
Fletcher, Marlowe, and others. Morris and Skeat's Specimens 
of Early English, vol. iii, contains selections from Skelton, 
Tyndale, Surrey, Wyatt, also Ralph Roister Bolster, Eiiphiies, 
and The Shepherd's Calendar. 

The Mermaid Series contains a most valuable selection of the play? 
of this age. 

Utopia. Cassell's National Library, Morley's Universal Library. 
Cajnelot Series, Teinple Classics, etc. 

Wyatt and Surrey. TotteVs Miscellany in Arber's English Re 
prints. 

The Foure P's. Full extracts in Morley's English Plays. 

Ralph Roister Bolster, and Corboduc. Morley's English Plays and 
Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearian Brama. 

Lyly. Enphiies in Arber's Reprints. Endymion, edited by G. P. 
Baker (Holt). Campaspe is in Manly's Specimens of the Pre- 
Shakespearian Brama. 

Spenser. The Riverside edition (3 vols.), edited by F. J. Child, is 
authoritative. The Globe edition is in one volume. Minor poems 
in the Temple Classics (Macmillan) ; The Shepherd'' s Calendar 
in Cassell's National Library. The Faerie Qiteene, Bk. I, in 
Riverside Literature Series. 

Sidney. Arcadia, edited by H. Friswell. Prose selections, edited 
by G. Macdonald in the Elizabethan Library. Befence of Poesie, 
in Cassell's National Library. Astrophel and Stella, edited by 
A. Pollard (Scott). 

Lyrics. A Book of Elizabethan Lyrics, edited by F. E. Schelling. 
Lyrics from the Bramatists of the Elizabethan Age, edited by 
A. H. Bullen. 

Marlowe. Chief plays in the Mermaid Series. Br. Faustus in the 
Ternple Bramatists, in Morley's English Plays, and in Morley's 
Universal Library. 

Hooker. Ecclesiastical Polity, Books I-IV, in Morley's Universal 
Library. 

Shakespeare. Good editions are numerous. Furness's Variorum 
is best for advanced work. For the beginner, Julius Ccesar, 
The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, The Tempest, and selec- 
tions from the sonnets are recommended. The Winter's Tale is 
published in one volume of Cassell's National Library together 
with Greene's Pandosto. 



REFERENCES 4^7 

Century XVII 

Saintsbury's Elizabethan LiteraUi7-e (to 1660). 

Lowell's Literary Essays, vol. iv, contains his essay on Milton; 

. vol. iii that on Dryden. 

Gosse's Jacobean Poets. 

Gosse's Seve?iteenth Century Studies. 

Lowell's Old Efiglish Dramatists. 

Macaulay's Essays on Milton and Bunyan. 

Schelling's Seventeenth Century Lyrics. 

Lamb's On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century. 

The chief plays of this age are found in the Mer7naid Series. 

Bacon. Essays are published in Morley's Universal Library^ also 
in Macmillan's Etiglish Classics and in Cassell's A^ational Li- 
brary. Learning, Book I, has been edited by A. S. Cook (Ginn). 

Jonson. Several of his masques are in H. A. Evans's English 
Masques. Timber, edited by F. E. Schelling (Ginn); three of 
his best plays and The Sad Shepherd are in Morley's Universal 
Library. 

Beaumont and Fletcher. Best plays are in the Mertnaid Series. 

Donne's poems are in the Muses'' Libraty, edited by E. K. Cham- 
bers. 

Milton. Masson's Poetical Works of Johti Aliltott (3 vols.) is th'^ 
standard edition. Paradise Lost, Books I-III, and earlier 
poems with notes and biographical sketch in Riverside Litera- 
ture Series ; also in Cassell's National Library (2 vols.). Mil- 
ton's Minor Poems (Allyn and Bacon). 

Herbert. 77/1? Temple is in Morley's Universal Library, also in 
Cassell's National Library. 

Crashaw. Poems, edited by Turnbull, are in Library of Old Au- 
thors j edited by Grosart, in Euller''s Worthies'' Library. 

Vaughan. Poems, edited by E. K. Chambers, in Muses' Library. 

Taylor. Holy Living and Holy Dying, in Bohn's Standard Li- 
brary. Selections, edited by E. E. Wentworth (Ginn). 

Carew, Lovelace, Suckling. Selections are in Cavalier and Co7i7'- 
tier Lyrists, Canterbury Poets Series (Scott). 

Herrick. Hesperides and Noble Nui7ibe7-s, edited by A. Pollard. 
Selections in Athenceufn P7'ess Series (Ginn). Lyrics, selected 
from Hesperides and Noble Numbers, by T. B. Aldrich (Century 
Co.). 



408 ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 

Walton. Compleat Angler,'\nC?iSSt\Vs Naironal Library. Lives of 

Donne and Herbert in Morley's Universal Library. 
Butler. Selections from Hudibras in Morley's Universal Library. 
Bunyan. The Pilgritn's Progress in Riverside Literature Series. 
Dryden. Religio Laid, etc. in Cassell's National Library ; also 

selections from his poems. Poetical Works, edited by W. P. 

Christie ; select poems edited by Christie (Clarendon Press). 

Palamon and Arcite, edited by Arthur Gilman, Riverside Lit' 

erature Series. 

Century XVIII 

Gosse's History of English Literature in the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury. 

Ashton's Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne. 

Susan Hale's Men and Manners of the Eighteenth Century. 

Thackeray's English Humorists. 

Johnson's Lives of the Poets (see Johnson's works). 

Leslie Stephen's Hours in a Library. 

Macaulay's Essay on Addison, edited by W. P. Trent, Riverside 
Literature Series. 

De Quincey's Essay on Pope. 

Lowell's Ajiiong ?ny Books. 

Eighteenth Cetitury Letters, edited by R. B. Johnson. 

Lanier's The English Novel. 

Carlyle's Essay on Burns, edited by George R. Noyes, Riverside 
Literature Series. 

Carlyle on Burns and Scott, Cassell's National Library. 

Pope. Essay on Man, edited by Mark Pattison (Clarendon Press); 
Essay on Man, Rape of the Lock, etc. edited by Henry W. Boyn- 
ton, Riverside IMerature Series. 

Addison and Steele. The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers, edited 
by Eustace Budgell, Riverside Literature Series; also edited 
by Samuel Thurber, Allyn and Bacon. Selections, Athenceum 
Press, Golden Treasury Series, etc. Selections from the Specta- 
tor, edited by J. Habberton (Putnam): from the 7<z//^r and the 
Guardian, together with Macaulay's Essays on Steele and Ad- 
dison (Bangs). Steele's plays are in the Mermaid Series. 

Swift. Gulliver's Voyage to Brobdingnag and Voyage to Lilliput, 
Riverside Literature Series. Selections, Ginn, Clarendon Press, 
etc. Selected Letters in R. B. Johnson's Eighteenth Century Let- 



REFERENCES 409 

ters and Letter- Writers. Battle of the Books in Cassell's Na- 
tional Library. 

Defoe. Robinson Crusoe, Riverside Literature Series ; Journal of 
the Plague Year, numerous school editions. Essay on Projects, 
Cassell's National Library. 

Johnson. Lives of the Poets, Cassell's National Library. Six Chief 
Lives from Johnson's Lives of the Poets together with Macaulay's 
Life of Johnson, edited by M. Arnold (Macmillan). Rasselas 
in Morley's Universal Library j and also in Cassell's National 
Library. 

Goldsmith. Vicar of Wakefield, Poems, and Plays, in Morley's 
Universal Libi'ary ; The Ficar of Wakefield, edhed by Mrs. H. 
A. Davidson, in Riverside Literature Series (with introduction, 
notes, aids to study, etc.). 

Burke. On Conciliation, edited by Robert Andersen, Riverside 
Literature Series. American Speeches with Essay on the Sub- 
lime and Beautiful (Macmillan). 

Percy. Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Bohn and other 
editions. 

Gray. Elegy and Other Poems ; Cowi^tr''?, John Gilpin and Other 
Poems (i vol.). Riverside Literature Series. Selections from 
Cowper in Athenceum Press Series, Canterbury Poets, etc. 

Burns. Selected poems in Riverside Literature Series ; also in 
AthencBum Press Series. 

Century XIX 

Leslie Stephen's Hours in a Library. 

Saintsbury's A History of Nineteenth Century Literature. 

Stedman's Victorian Poets. 

Bagehot's Literary Studies (Thackeray, Dickens, Macaulay, Ten- 
nyson, Browning). 

McCarthy's History of Otir Own Times. 

Dowden's Studies in Literature (i 789-1 877). 

Wordsworth. Selected Poems, Riverside Literature Series; also 
in Golden Treasury Series ; Cassell's National Library. 

Coleridge. Selections from Coleridge, in Athenceum Press Series. 
Selections from Prose Writings, edited by H. A. Beers (Holt); 
Selections from Coleridge and Campbell, Riverside Literature 
Series. 

Southey. Life of Nelson, Curse of Kehama, Cassell's National Li- 



4IO ENGLAND'S LITERATURE 

brary. Selections in Canterbury Poets Series ; Life of Nelson in 
Morley's Universal Library, also in Longmans' ^?/^//j// Classics. 

Scott. The Lady of the Lake, Cassell's National Library ; The 
Lay of the Last Minstrel, edited by W. J. Rolfe, Riverside Lit- 
er attire Series J Lvanhoe, Riverside Literature Series. 

Byron. Selected Poems, Riverside Literature Series, Nos. 128 and 
189 (Houghton Mifflin Company). 

Shelley. Selections in Heath's English Classics ; also in Goldeti 
Treastiry Series. 

Keats. Ode on a Grecian Urn aiid Other Poems, Riverside Lit- 
erature Series. Endymion, etc., Cassell's National Library. 
Selected Poems in Athenccum Press Series and Golden Treasury 
Series. 

Lamb. Tales from Shakespeare, Riverside Literature Series. 
Essays of Elia, in Catnelot Classics, and elsewhere. Specimens 
of English Dramatic Poets, Bohn. Selected Essays, Riverside 
Literature Series. 

De Quincey. The Flight of a Tartar Tribe, Riverside Literature 
Series. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Morley's Uni- 
versal Library, Temple Classics. Selections, edited by Bliss 
Perry (Doubleday, Page and Co.). 

Macaulay. Essays on fohtison and Goldsmith (i vol.) Essays on 
Milton and Addison (i vol.), Riverside Literature Series and 
Cassell's National Library. Lays of Ancient Rome, Riverside 
Literature Scries. 

Garnett and Gosse. English Literature. 

Hammerton. George Meredith in Anecdote and Criticism. 

Griswold. Personal Sketches of Recent Authors. 

James. Partial Portraits. 

Barrie. An Edinburgh Eleven. 

Balfour. Life of Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Lang. Recollections of Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Phelps. Essays on Modern Novelists. 

Phelps. Essays on Books. 

Phelps. Pure Gold of Nineteenth Century Literature. 

Carlyle. Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, 
Riverside Literatttre Series. 

Ruskin. Sesame and Lilies, Riverside Literature Series. Selected 
Essays and Letters (Ginn). Selections, edited by C. B. Tinker. 
Riverside Literature Series. 



REFERENCES 411 

Arnold. Sohrab and RustJim and Other Poems, Riverside Litera- 
ture Series, edited by Louise Imogen Guiney. Poems (i vol.) 
(Macmillan). Introduction to Ward's English Poets, vol. i. 

Browning. The Pied Piper of Hamelin and Other Poems, River- 
side Literature Series. 

Tennyson. Enoch Arden and Other Poems, Riverside Literature 
Series. The Princess, edited by W. J. Rolfe, Riverside Litera- 
ture Series. Idylls of the King, edited by W. J. Rolfe (Hough- 
ton, Mifflin and Co.) ; edited by H. W. Boynton (Allyn and 
Bacon). 



AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

The following works are of value for general reference : 

Stedman and Hutchinson's Library of American Literature (ii 
vols.) (W. E. Benjamin) contains selections from nearly all the 
authors named in this book. 

Hart's American Histojy told by Contonporaries (4 vols.) (Mac- 
millan). 

Richardson's History of American Literature (2 vols.) (Putnam). 

Whipple's History of American Literature, Harper's Magazine, 
1876. 
^Stedman's An American Anthology (Houghton, Mifflin and Co.). 

Stedman's Poets of America (Houghton, Mifflin and Co.). 

Colonial and Revolutionary Times 

Tyler's Histoty of American Literature during the Colonial Times 

(Putnam). 
R. C. Winthrop's Life and Letters offohn Winthrop (Little, Brown 

and Co.). 
Helen Campbell's Anne Bradstreet and her Time (Lothrop). 
Bradford's History of Plymouth, published by the Commonwealth 

of Massachusetts. 
Winthrop's History of New England (2 vols.) (Little, Brown and 

Co.). 
Bay Psalm Book (reprint) (Dodd, Mead and Co.). 
Wigglesworth's Day of Doom, edited by J. W. Dean. 
The New England Primer, edited by Paul Leicester P'ord (Dodd, 

Mead and Co.). 
Trent and Wells's Colonial Prose and Poetry (3 vols.) (Crowell). 



412 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

Tyler's History of the Literature of the American Revolution 

(2 vols.) (Putnam). 
Wendell's Life of Cottofi Mather (Dodd, Mead and Co.). 
Kate M. Cone's Cotton Mather's Daughter {Tht Outlook, vol. 8i, 

nos. 6, 7). 
Allen's Life offonathan Edwards (Houghton, Mifflin and Co.). 
McMaster's Life of Betijatnin Franklin (Houghton, Mifflin and 

Co.). 
Ford's The Many-Sided Franklin (The Century Co.). 
Tyler's Three Men of Letters {Berkeley, Dwight, Barlow) (Putnam). 
Todd's Barlow's Life and Letters (Putnam). 
Austin's Philip Freneau, A History of his Life and Times (A. 

Wessels Co.). 
Dunlap's Life of Charles Brockden Brown (2 vols.)(James P. Parke). 
Smyth's The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 

(Lindsay). 
M2i.\.\\tT's Magna Ha Christi, rt^nnitd 1853 (Silas Andrews & Son). 
Edwards's Works (2 vols.) (Bohn). 

Franklin's Works (10 vols.) edited by John Bigelow (Putnam). 
Franklin's Autobiography (3 vols.), edited by John Bigelow (Put- 
nam). 
Franklin's Autobiography, Riverside Literature Series. 
Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, Riverside Literature Series. 
The Federalist, edited by P. L. Ford (Holt). 
Trumbull's MFingal {?>2.n\\x^\ G. Goodrich). 
Freneau's Poems (3 vols.), edited by Pattee (Princeton University 

Library). 
Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution, edited by Frank 

Moore (Appleton). 

The National Period 

For biography, consult the American Men of Letters Series 
(Houghton, Mifflin and Co.). This contains lives of Irving, Tho- 
reau. Cooper, Emerson, Poe, Willis, Franklin, Bryant, Simms, 
Taylor, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Whittier, Prescott, Parkman, 
Bret Harte, Holmes, Motley, Whitman, Curtis, Margaret Fuller, 
and Webster. 

Irving's Life and Letters (4 vols.), edited by P. M. Irving (Putnam). 

J. G. Wilson's Bryant and his Friends (Fords). 

Halleck's Life and Letters, edited by J. G. Wilson (Appleton). 

The Poetical Writings of Halleck, edited by J. G. Wilson (Apple- 
ton). 



REFERENCES 413 

J^ife and Letters of Longfellow, by Samuel Longfellow (3 vols.) 

(Houghton, Mifflin and Co.). 
Higginson's Conte?nporaries (Houghton, Mifflin and Co.). 
S. T. Pickard's Life and Letters of fohn Greenleaf Whittier {2 

vols.) (Houghton, Mifflin and Co.). 
E. E. Hale's fames Russell Lowell and his Friends (Houghton, 

Mifflin and- Co.). 
H. E. Scudder's /flw^j Russell Lowell: A Biography (2 vols.) 

(Houghton, Mifflin and Co.). 
J. T. Morse's Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes (2 vols.) 

(Houghton, Mifflin and Co.). 
J. E. Cabot's Ralph Waldo Etnerson, A Memoir (2 vols.) (Hough- 
ton, Mifflin and Co.). 
The Correspondence of Emerson atid Carlyle (2 vols.) (Houghton, 

Mifflin and Co.). 

Houghton, Mifflin and Co. are the only authoritative publishers 
of the works of the following writers : Longfellow in 1 1 vols. 
Whittier in 7 ; Lowell inn; Holmes in 14 ; Emerson in 1 2 ; Thoreau 
in II ; Hawthorne in 13 ; Mrs. Stowe in 16. The same pubhshers 
have also brought out one-volume editions of the above New Eng- 
land poets. Many selections are published in the various numbers 
of the Riverside Literature Series and in American Poems and 
Ainerican Prose, edited by H. E. Scudder. The Riverside Litera- 
ture Series contains a large number of selections from their writings. 
Nathaniel Hawthorne and his ^//"^, by Julian Hawthorne (Hough- 
ton, Mifflin and Co.). 
Henry James's Life of Hawthortte (Harper). 
Mrs. James T. Fields's Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Houghton, 

Mifflin and Co.). 
Bancroft's History of the United States (6 vols.) (Little, Brown and 

Co.). 
Prescott's Works (12 vols.) (Lippincott). 
Motley's Works (17 vols.) (Harper). 
Parkman's Works (12 vols.) (Little, Brown and Co.). 
Ticknor's Life of Prescott (Ticknor and Fields). 
Motley's Letters, edited by G. W. Curtis (2 vols.) (Harper). 
Holmes's A Memoir of Motley (Houghton, Mifflin and Co.). 
C. H. Farnham's Life of Francis Parkman (Little, Brown and 

Co.). 
Manly's Southern Literature (Johnson). 



414 AMERICA'S LITERATURE 

Baskervill's Southern Writers (Barbee). 

S. A. Link's Pwtteers of Southern Literature, including Hayne, 

Timrod, Simms, Cooke, Poe, and others (Barbee and Smith). 
Simms's A'ovels (lo vols.) (Armstrong). 
Simms's Poems (2 vols.) (Redfield). 
Hayne's Poems (Lothrop). 
Timrod's Poems (Houghton, Mifflin, and Co.). 
Poe's Works (11 vols.) (Stone and Kimball). (17 vols.) (Cl-o 

well). 

The works of the later authors are so generally accessible as to 
make special reference unnecessary. For biographical data, con- 
sult Who's Who in America, and for both criticism and biography 
consult the magazine articles which may be found through Poole's 
Index, and the Cumulative Index. 

An exceedingly valuable list of references to poems and maga- 
zine articles as well as books relating to Bryant, Poe, Emerson, 
Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, Whitman, and Lanier mav 
be found in The Chief Americaft Poets, by Curtis Hidden Page 
(Houghton, Mifflin and Co.). 



INDEX 



References to summaries and lists of names are printed in heavy type. The 
location on the colored map of the places mentioned in the text is indicated. 



Abbotsford, map i, Ca; 205: 306; 207. 

A Becket, Thomas, 44. 

Absalom and Achitophel, 148. 

Abyssinia, 177. 

Adam, 36, 141, 142. 

Adam Bede, 229, 230, 231. 

Addison, Joseph, portrait, 159; love for 
Swift, 166; Johnson compared with, 
175, 177; 241- 

Address to Ihe Deil, 192, 

Adonais, 211. 

/Elfric, homilies of, 21, 24. 

/Eneas, 30. 

Mneid, Surrey's, 75; Dryden's, 149. 

/Esop's Fables, 64. 

Africa, 38, 65. 

"Age of Arrest," 54. 

Age of the Pen, 257-260. 

Albert, Prince, 256. 

Alcuin, account of, 16; 24. 

Aleppo, 180. 

Alexander's Feast, 149. 

Alexander the Great, in romance, 29, 
34- 

Alexandra, Queen, Tennyson s welcome 
to, 255. 

Alfred the Great, account of, 16-20; 
portrait, 17; 23; 24; 83. 

Alice in Wonderland, 259. 

Allegory. See Pilgrim's Progress, 
Faerie Queene. 

AUiteration, in Old English poetry, 6; 
disappearing, 22; 24; in Piers Plow- 
man, the last alliterative poem, 39, 
40; Chaucer's use of, 49. 

Allon Locke, 258. 

Amelia, in Vanity Fair, 227. 

America, literature affected by discov- 
eries in, 69; by Revolution in, 186. 

Ancient Mariner, The Rime of the, 198, 
26s. 

Ancren Riwle, The, 28, 30, 34. 

Angles, I, 2. 

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, begun, 19; 20; 
21; 23; 24; ends, 30. 

Anglo-Saxon metre, 6, 7; used by Lang- 
land, 39, 40; abandoned by Chaucer. 
49- 51- 



Anglo-Saxon poetry, remains of, 8; 24. 

Apelles' Song, 89. 

Apollyon. in Pilgrim's Progress, 144. 

Arcadia, 86-88; printed, 92; lOi. 

Arctic Circle, 184. 

Arctic Ocean, 81. 

Areopagilica, 121-122. 

Armada, Spanish, 92. 

Armour, Jean, 191. 

.Arnold, Dr., of Rugby, 248. 

.\rnold, Matthew, 232, 240; account of, 
248-249; 264; 266; 267. 

.\rthur, in cycle of romance, 29; 30; 34; 
54; 66; Milton's proposed epic of, 
140; 254. 

Asia, 180, 220. 

Ask Me no More, 132, 133. 

Astrophel and Stella, 94. 

Aurora Leigh, 251. 

Austen, Jane, 303; account of, 221-222; 
228; 264; 266. 

Austen, Lady, 188 

Author, a mediaeval, at work, illustra- 
tion, 15. 

"Authorized version." See Bible. 

Avon River, map i, CDb; 95; 96; to6. 

Aylmar, in King Horn, 30. 

Baa. Baa, Black Sheep, 239. 

Bacon, Francis, account of, 106-109; 
150; 151; 161. 

Ballads, early, 21-22, 24; of Robin 
Hood, 32-33, 34 ; of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, 55-56; marks of, 56-57; Celtic 
influence on, 57, 67; in sixteenth cen- 
tury, 81; in Percy's Rcliques, 187; of 
Coleridge and Wordsworth, 198; of 
the Scottish Border, 204-205. 

Banks o' Boon, 191. 

Bannockburn, 191. 

Banhcstvr Tovers, 259. 

Barrett, Elizabeth, 249-250. See Eliz- 
abeth Barrett Browning. 

Barrie, Sir James, 260. 

Bastile, 174. 

Battle of the Books, 164. 

Baxter, Richard, account of, 131-132; 
151. 



4l6 INDEX 



Beaumont, Francis, 105. See Beau- 
mont and Fletcher. 

Beaumont and Fletcher, their skill in 
plots, no; account of, 114; 150; 151. 

Becky Sharp, in Vanity Fair, 227. 

Bede, account of, 12-16; 18; 19; 23-24. 

Bennett, Arnold, 260. 

Bentley, Richard, criticises Pope's 
Iliad, 157- 

Beowulf, story of, 3-5; facsimile of MS., 
5; changed by Christianity, 5-6; 
lines from, 6; 8; oompared with The 
Dream of the Rood, 23; 24; treat- 
ment of woman in, 31 ; 40; 262. 

Bible, paraphrased by Caedmon, 10; 
translated by Wyclif, 41-43; trans- 
lated by Tyndale, 73, loi; "King 
James version," 109-110; 151; basis 
of Paradise Lost, 141; Bunyan's 
knowledge of, 145; 193; Ruskin uses 
vocabulary of, 247. 

Bird, The, 128. 

Black Death, 36, 40, 50. 

Blackmore, Richard Doddridge, 260. 

Blackwood's Magazine, 213, 218, 221, 
229, 266. 

Blank verse, 75; gaining ground in the 
drama, 89; its power shown by Mar- 
lowe, 90; becomes accepted metre of 
the drama, 102. 

Blessed Damozel, The, 257. 

Blue-Coat School, 214, 217. 

Boccaccio, 44, 51. 

Boldness in thought, 72; in literature, 
81, lOI. 

Bombay, birthplace of Kipling, 237. 

Bonaparte, 206. 

Book of Snobs, 226. 

Boswell, James, account of, 1 77-1 78; 1 95. 

Bride of Abydos, The, 209. 

Britten's Bower of Delights, 88. 

Brobdingnag, in Gulliver's Travels, 165, 
166. 

Bronte, Charlotte, 228-229; 264. 

Brooke, Rupert, 261. 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 249-251; 
264. 

Browning, Robert, account of, 249- 
252; portrait, 250; 262: 264; 267. 

Brushwood Boy, The, 240. 

Brut, 30, 34. 

Bunyan, John, account of, 143-146; 
portrait, 143; 151; 152. 

Burke, Edmund, 178; 181; account of, 
183-184; 194; 195- 

Burns, Robert, 128; account of, 189- 
194; 196; 197; 262. 

Butler, Samuel, account of, 139-140; 
151; 152. 



Byron, Lord, 202, 203, 205; account d, 
207-210; 211; 2i3;2i4;2i8;222;223; 
264; 265. 

Cabots, the, 65, 67. 

Cffidmon, account of, 8-10; in Bede's 

Ecclesiastical History, 14; 23; 24. 
Cain, 6. 
Calais, 202. 
Calvinists, 164. 
Cambridge, map 1, Eb; 68; 90; 119; 

135; 186. 
Canterbury, map i, Ec. 
Canterbury Tales, account of, 44-49; 

51 ; printed by Ca.xton, 64. 
Canute, poem of, 22. 
Captains Courageous, 239. 
Carew, Thomas, account of, 132-133; 

151- 
Caricature, employed by Dickens, 225. 
Carlyle, Mrs., 230. 
Carlyle, Thomas, 230; 240; account of, 

242-245; 264; 266; 267. 
Ca.sh, in Ben Jonson's works, 112. 
Cato, 162-163. 

"Cavaher Poets," 132; 134; 150; 151. 
Caxton, William, 54; presented to Ed- 
ward IV, illustration, 63; introduces 

printing, 64; 67. 
Celestial City, in Pilgrim's Progress, 

144, 145- 
Celts, driven west and north by the 

Teutons, 1-2; learn Christianity, 5: 

literature influenced by, 22-23, 24 

57, 67; 81. 
Century of Prose, 153-196. 
Century of the Novel, 197-268. 
Channel, 138. 
Chapman, George, no. 
Charlemagne, 16, 17, 32; romance of, 

29, 34- 
Charles I. 117, 122, 124, 132, 138. 
Charles II, returns to England, 124; 

130; 140; feeling towards dissenters, 

144; welcomed by Dryden, 146. 
Chaucer, Geoflfrey, 33; account of, 43- 

50; portrait, 49; 51 ; imitators of, 5a- 

53; 54; 56; 66; 68; 85; 135. 
Chaucer's Century, 35-51. 
Chesterfield, Lord, 176-177. 
Chettle, Henry, writes of Shakespeare, 

98. 
Chev^y Chase, 56. 

Childe Harold, 205, 207, 208, 265. 
Child's Garden of Verse, The, 237. 
Chrislabel, 200. 
Christian, in Pilgrim's Progress, 144, 

145- 
Christmas Eve and Easter Day, 251. 



INDEX 



"Christopher North," 2i8. See Wil- 
son, John. 

Chronicle, Anglo-Saxon, 30. 

Chronicles, become interesting, 28; 34. 

Church, after Alfred's death, 21; after 
the Blaclc Death, 36, 37, 51; owns 
much land, 55. 

Church, dedication of a Saxon, illustra- 
tion, 20. 

Church of England, separates from 
Church of Rome, 74, loi ; in contro- 
versy with the Puritans, 95; rebuked 
by Milton, 121 ; defended by Dryden, 
149; 163- 

Church Porch, The, 126. 

City of Destruction, in Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress, 144. 

Civil War, 137, 171. 

Clarissa Harlowe, 173. 

Clement, in Ben Jonson's works, 112. 

Cloud, The, 210. 

Coffee drinking, 153, 194. 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 198, 199, 
200-201 ; portrait, 201; 208; 214; 223; 
264-265. 

Collins, William Wilkie, 260. 

Colonel Newcome, in The Newcomes, 
228. 

Columbus, 65, 67, 69. 

Comedy of Errors, The, 98. 

Commons, House of, 55. See Parlia- 
ment. 

Commonwealth, religious writings dur- 
ing the, 129, 151. 

Com pleat Angler, The, 137-138; 152. 

Compound words liked by the Teu- 
tons, 7. 

Comus, 120, 121. 

"Conceits," of Herbert, 126; of 
Vaughan, 127; of Donne, 119, 151. 

Confessions of an English Opium-Ealer, 
218, 265. 

Conrad, Joseph, 260. 

Constantinople, captured by the Turks, 
68. 

Continent of Europe, 134, 180, 208. 

Copernicus, 69. 

Corinna's Going a-Maying, 135-136. 

Correctness. See Form. 

Corsair, The, 209. 

Colter's Saturday Night, The, 193-194, 
196. 

Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. See 
Arcadia. 

Coventry, map i, Db. 

Cowper, WiUiam, account of, 187-189; 
194; 196. 

Craigenputtock, map i, Ca; home of 
Carlyle, 243; left by him, 244. 



Cranford, 229. 

Crashaw, Richard, 124; account of, 
126-127; 150; 151. 

Crecy, 36. 

Criticism, in Queen Anne's time, 171, 
195- 

Cromwell, Oliver, 122; Milton writes 
in his honor, 123; eulogized by Dry- 
den, 146. 

Cross, Mary Ann Evans, 229. See 
"George Eliot." 

Crossing the Bar, 257. 

Crusades, 27, 29, 34, 35, 36. 

Cry of the Children, The, 249. 

"Currer Bell," 228. See Charlotte 
Bronte. 

Curse of Kehama, The, 200. 

Cycles, of mystery plays, 58, 59. 

Cymbeline, 103. 

Cynewulf, account of, 10-12; 23; 24. 

Da Gama, Vasco, 65, 67. 

Damascus, 250. 

Danes, in Beowulf, 3; invade North- 
umbria, 16, 17; 19; 20; 21; 24. 

Dante, 44. 

Darwin, Charles, 258. 

David Copperfield, 225. 

Davidson, Betty, 189. 

Davis's Straits, 184. 

Dead Sea, 38. 

Decadence of Elizabethan drama, 115- 
116, 151. 

Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis, 
217. 

Defence of the English People, 122, 140. 

Defoe, Daniel, 163; account of, 167- 
171; portrait, 169; 194; 195; 222. 

Dekker, Thomas, no. 

Delectable Mountains, in Pilgrim's 
Progress, 144. 

Delights of the Muses, 126. 

Denmark, 3. 

Dear's Lament, 7, 8, 23. 

Departmental Ditties, 237. 

De Quincey, Thomas, 203, 214; ac- 
count of, 217-221; portrait, 219; 223; 
264; 265. 

Deserted Village, The, 182, 187. 

Destruction, the City of, in Pilgrim's 
Progress, 144. 

Deucalion, 246. 

Devotional books, in thirteenth cen- 
tury, 28. 

Diana of the Crossways, 231. 

Dickens, Charles, account of, 223-226; 
portrait, 224; Thackeray compared 
with, 226-227; 229; 230; 231; 264; 

260. 



4i8 



INDEX 



Dictionary, Johnson's, 175. 176-177, 
183, 195- 

Disdain Returned, 133. 

Disraeli, Benjamin, Lord Beaconsfield, 
258. 

Dissertation on Roast Pig, A, 217. 

Diverting History of John Gilpin, The, 
188. 

Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge, 259. 

Don Juan, 209. 

Donne, John, account of, 117-119; Wal- 
ton's Life of, 137; 150; 151; 211. 

Dorsetshire, 233. 

Doubting Castle, in Pilgrim's Progress, 
144. 

Douglas, in the ballads, 204. 

Downright, in Ben Jonson's works, 112, 

Drama, early Elizabethan, 82; later 
Elizabethan, 88, loi ; need of a 
standard verse, 89; loi ; the classic, 
III; decadence of the Elizabethan, 
1 1 5-1 16; 151 ; of Greeks imitated by 
Milton 142; of the Restoration, 146- 
147; 152; 260. 

Dream Children, 217. 

Dream of Fair Women, A, 254 

Dream of the Rood, The, 11, 12, 23. 

Dryden,John, account of, 146-150; 151; 
152; 153; 171- 

Dublin, 163. 

Dumfries, map i, Ca; 192. 

Dunciad, The, 157-158- 

Dunstan, 21, 24. 

Dutch, Dryden writes on war with, 147. 

Early English Period, 1-24. 

Early English Poetry, 1-12; form of, 6; 
as a whole, 12; 23 ; 24. 

Earthly Paradise, The, 257. 

East India House, 214, 216. 

Ecclesiastical History, 14, 18, 19, 24. 

Ecclesiastical Polity, 95, 102. 

Eden. 141. 

Ecfinburgh, map i, Ca; 180; 190; 191; 
203: 204; 220. 

Edinburgh Review, 208, 221, 261, 266. 

Edinburgh, University of, Carlyle en- 
ters, 243; Carlyle chosen Lord Rec- 
tor of, 245. 

Edward II, Marlowe's, 90, 91. 

Edward V, More's Life of, 72. 

Edward VL 78. 

Edward VIE 255. 

"Egdon Heath," 233. 

Elegy in a Country Churchyard, 186. 
196. 

Elixir, 125. 

Elizabeth, Queen, 71, 79, 82, 86, 91, 92, 



258; at Kenil worth, 96: England dur- 
ing reign of, 80; loi, death of, 103; 
106; 117. 

Elizabeth, granddaughter of Shake- 
speare, 106. 

Elizabethan Age, literary debt to Skel- 
ton, 71; England during, 80; literary 
boldness, 81; early drama of, 82; in- 
spiration lingers, 103; vanishes, 150; 
romances of, 171. 

Ely, map i, Eb; 22. 

Emma, 222. 

Emmanuel's Land, in Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress, 144. 

Endymion, 213, 265. 

England, named from the Angles, 2; 
Bede's history of, 14; Goldsmith's, 
180; Hume's, 185; Macaulay's, 232, 
266; at the death of Alfred, 20; con- 
quered by William, 23, 25; visited by 
the Black Death, 36, 40; feudal sys- 
tem in, 35; increases in strength, 80, 
81,101; awakening to the World War, 
261. 

England's Helicon, 88. 

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 208. 

English Humourists, 228.- 

English language. Old English com- 
pared with modern English, 6; used 
by Bede. 15; of the ninth century, 
18; as used by Alfred, 18, 19; as 
used by Chaucer, 50; struggle be- 
tween French and English. 26; after 
the Conquest, 27; fears of its disap- 
pearance, 109. 

Enoch Arden. 256, 267. 

Ensham, 21. 

Epic, growth of, 3; Milton's proposed 
British, 140; ancient epics, 69. 

Essay of Dramatic Poesy, 149. 

Essay on Criticism, 155. 

Essay on Man. 158. 

Essay on Milton 241, 242; Macaulay's, 
266. 

Essay on Projects. 168. 

Essays, Bacon's, 107-108. 

Essays of Elia, 216, 265. 

Ethelwulf, 20. 

Euphues, 82, 86, loi. 

Euphuism, 83; used by Shakespeare, 98. 

Europe, ancient MSS. carried through- 
out, 68; aroused by Renaissance and 
discoveries, 69. 

Eve, 36, 141. 

E.ve of St. Agnes, 213. 

Eve of St. John, 204. 

Every Man in His Humour, no. 

Everyman, 62, 63; scene from, illustra- 
tion, 61; 67. 



INDEX 



419 



Excalibur. in Malory, 54. 
Exeter, map i, Cc. 8. 
Exeter Book, 8, 24. 

Faerie Queene, read to Raleigh, 92; 
symbolism of, 93; beauties of, 94; 98; 
102. 

Faithful, in Pilgrim's Progress, 145. 

Familiar Studies of Men and Books, 236. 

Far from the Madding Crowd, 233 . 

"Father of Enghsh Poetry," 43, 48. 

Faustus, the Tragical History of Dr., go. 

Fergusson, Robert, 190. 

Ferrex and Porrc.x, 79. See Gorboduc. 

Feudal system, 35. 

Fielding, Henry, 173, 194, 195, 221, 
227. 

First English comedy, 78, loi. 

First English tragedy, 79, loi. 

First Folio, 115. 

First poet laureate, 114. 

First printed English book, 64. 

First real novel, 172, 195. 

Fletcher, John. See Beaumont and 
Fletcher. 

Flight of a Tartar Tribe, The, 220. 

Florence, 44. 

Ford, John, no. 

Form, attention to, needed by English 
literature, 82, loi ; introduced by 
Wyatt and Surrey, 74, 75; shown by 
Lyly, Spenser, and Sidney, 82, loi; 
influence of French care for, 146-147, 
152; Pope's care for, 158. 

Forsaken Merman, The, 248. 

Foure P's, The, 77. 

Four Georges, The, 228. 

France, borrows Alcuin, 16; sends 
teachers to England, 18; invaded "by 
Normans, 25; 30; 43; Reign of Ter- 
ror in. 184; Revolution in, afTects liter- 
ature, 186; 197-198. 

Fraser's Magazine, 226, 243. 

Frederick II, Carlyle's History of the 
Life and Times of, 245. 

Freeman, Edward Augustus, 258. 

"Free verse," 75. 251. See Blank 
verse. 

French, learned by the English, 26; 
History of the Kings of Britain trans- 
lated into, 30; Mandeville's Travels 
written in, 38; used by Chaucer, 43, 
49; models followed by the English, 
68, 146-147, 152; 155- 

French Revolution, Burke's Reflections 
on the, 184. 

French Revolution, Carlyle's History of 
the, 244. 

Froude, James Anthony, 258. 



Fuller, Thomas, 129-130, 131, 205. 
Fuller's Worthies, 130. 

Galsworthy, John, 260. 

Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 229, 264. 

Gazetteer, position of, 160. 

Genesis, 141. 

Geoffrey of Monmouth, 29, 34. 

George I, 163. 

George IV, 206. 

"George Eliot," account of, 229-230; 
231; 233; 264; 266. 

Germany, early home of the Teutons, 
i; 23; printing in, 64; effect of the 
Renaissance upon, 69, 73; refuge of 
Tyndale, 73; 184; 199. 

Giant Despair, in Pilgrim's Progress, 
144- 

Gibbon, Edward, 184; account of, 185; 
194; 195- 

Gibson, Wilfrid Wilson, 261. 

Girondists, 197. 

Glasgow, map i, Ba; University of, 235. 

Glastonbury, map i, Cc; 21. 

Globe Theatre, 105. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, account of, 179- 
183; portrait, 181; 187; Cowper com- 
pared with, 188; 194; 195; 196. 

Good-Naturcd Man, The, 182. 

Goody Two Shoes, 180. 

Gorboduc, 79; compared with Ralph 
Roister Doister, 80; 82; loi. 

Gospel of St. John, Bede's translation 
of, 15, 19, 24. 

Gospels, in the "authorized version," 
109. 

Grail. See Holv Grail. 

Gray's Elegy, 186, 187, 196. 

Gray, Thomas, account of, 186-187; 
194; 196. 

Great Fire of London, 147. 

Great Hoggarty Diamond, The, 226. 

Greek, dances loved by Herrick, 135; 
drama and Samson Agonisles, 142; 
language studied by Shakespeare, 
96; literature known to Surrey and 
Wyalt, 74; mythology, 212; restraint 
of Arnold, 248; 267. 

Greeks, flee to Italy, 68; ancient writ- 
ings of, 68; modern, helped by By- 
ron, 210, 265. 

Green, John Richard, 258. 

Grendel, in Beowulf, 3, 4, 5. 

Greville, Fulke, 92. 

Guardian, The, 162, 195. 

Gulliver's Travels, 165-166; 195. 

Hallam, Arthur Henry, 255. 
Hamlet, 103. 



420 



INDEX 



Handsome Nell, 189. 

Hardy, Thomas, 231; account of, 232- 

23s; 261, 264, 266. 
Hastings, Warren, 183-184, Macaulay's 

Essay on, 242. 
Hathaway, Anne, 96. 
Hebrides, 179. 

Henry VII, 70-76, 78, loi, passim. 
Henry Esmond, 228. 
Herbert, George, account of, 124-126; 

portrait of, 125; model of Vaughan, 

128; Walton's Z-j/eo/, 137; 138; 150; 

151. 
Heroes and Hero-Worship, 244. 
Herrick, Robert, 132 ; account of, 134- 

137; 151; 152. 
Hesperides, The, 135-136- 
Hester, 216. 

Hey wood, John, 77, 78, 100, loi. 
Hilda, 9- 

Hind and the Panther, The, 149. 
Hindustan, 237. 

History of America, Robertson's, 184. 
History of England, Goldsmith's, 180. 
Hisiory of England. Hume's, 185. 
History of England, Macaulay's, 242, 

266. 
History of Scotland during the Reigns of 

Queen Mary and James the Sixth, 

Robertson's, 184. 
Hisiory of the Decline and Fall of the 

Roman Empire, Gibbon's, 185. 
History of the French Revolution, Car- 

lyle's, 244. 
History of the Kings of Britain. 29. 
History of the Life and Times of Frederick 

II, Carlyle's, 245, 267. 
History of the World, 106; progress of, 

262. 
Holy and Profane State, The, 129. 
Holy Grail, 30. 
Holy Land, 35. 

Holy Living and Holy Dying, 130. 
Homer, Pope compared with, 156. 
Homilies, 21, 24. 
Hooker, Richard, account of, 95; 100; 

102. 
Hottentot, 176. 
Hours of Idleness, 208. 
House of the Interpreter, in Pilgrim's 

Progress, 144. 
Hrothgar, in Beowulf, 3, 4. 
Hudibras, 139-140; 152. 
Hudson's Bay, 184. 
Humber River, map I, DEb; 17. 
Hume, David, 184, 194, 195. 
Hundred Years' War, 36, 50, 54, 66. 
Hunt, Leigh, 214. 
Huxley, Thomas, 258. 



Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativ- 
ity, 1 1 9-1 20. 
Hymns, Addison's, 163; Cowper's, 188. 

Idylls of the King, 256, 267. 

Ignorance, in Pilgrim's Progress, 145. 

Iliad, translated by Pope, 156. 

// Fenseroso, 120. 

India, 180, 184, 226; Kiphng in, 237, 
238; Macaulay in, 241. 

Indian law, Macaulay writes on, 242. 

Inland Voyage, An, 236. 

In Memoriam, 255, 267. 

Inquisition, Spanish, 134. 

Instauratio Magna, 108-109. 

Interludes, 76, 77, loi. 

Interpreter, the, in Pilgrim's Progress, 
144. 

Ireland, 14; famous schools in, 22; 
Spenser in, 91; 92; Addison in, 160; 
return to themes of, 260. 

Italy, resort of the English clergy, 37; 
visited by Chaucer, 43; literature of, 
compared with that of England, 43, 
44, 68; sought by Greek scholars, 68; 
effect of the Renaissance upon, 69; 
literature of, known to Surrey and 
Wyatt, 74; home of blank verse, 80; 
tales and romances of, brought to 
England, 81; 213; home of the Brown- 
ings, 250. 

Ivanhoe, 228, 230. 

Jack, in The Tale of a Tub, 163. 

James I, of England, 92, 103; impris- 
ons Raleigh, 106; 108; praised in 
masques, 113; his court, 116; 117; 
124. 

James I, of Scotland, 52, 53, 66. 

Jane Eyre, 228. 

Jarrow, map i. Da; 12, 13. 

Jeffrey, Francis, 208, 221, 266. 

Jeu> of Malta, The, go. 

John Gilpin, 188. 

John of Trevisa, 26. 

Johnson, Samuel, account of, 175-179; 
portrait, 175; 180; 181; 183; 194; 
195; Macaulay's Essay on, 242. 

Jonson, Ben, 106; account of, 110-116; 
portrait, in; criticises Donne, 118; 
influence of, 119; 150; 151; 153. 

Joseph Andrews, 227. 

Journal of the Plague Year, 170. 

Journey to the Hebrides, 179. 

Juan Fernandez, 169. 

Judc the Obscure, 235. 

Jungle Books, The, 239. 

Jutes, I. 

Jutland, I, 23, 



INDEX 



421 



Keats, John, 202, 203, 210, 211; ac- 
count of, 212-214; porPrait, 212; 218; 
223; 264; 265. 

Kenilworth, map i, Db; 96; 207. 

Kildare, 13. 

Kim, 238. 

Ki^g Horn, 30-31. 

" King James Version." See Bible. 

King Lear, 103. 

"King Monmouth," 167. 

Kings of Brilaiil, 29. 

King's Quair, The, 53. 

"King's Treasuries," 246. 

Kingsley, Charles, 258. 

"Kinsey," 218. 

Kipling, Rudyard, 231 ; account of, 237- 
240; portrait, 238; 264, 266. 

Knighthood, decreases in value, 55, 67. 

Kubla Khan, 200. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 253. 

Lady Jane Grey, 130. 

"Lady of Christ's College," 119. 

Lady to Her Inconstant Servant, The, 
132. 

Lake Country, 197, I9Q. 202, 214, 218. 

"Lake Poets," 197. 203, 264. 

"Lake School," 197. 

U Allegro, 120. 

Lamb, Charles, no; 203; account of, 
'214-217; portrait, 215; 218; 223; 
264; 265; 267. 

Lamb, Mary, 214, 216. 

Lamia, 213. 

Langland, William, account of, 39-41 ; 
43; 50. 

Language. See English Language. 

Lasswade, 220. 

Last Days of Pompeii, 258. 

Latin, language of scholars and the 
church, 15; priests' ignorance of, 17; 
compared with English, 18; used by 
GoeSrey of Monmouth, 29; aban- 
doned by Wyclif, 42; literature 
known to Surrey and Wyatt, 74; 
Shakespeare's knowledge of, 96; ex- 
pected permanence of, 109. 

Launcelot, 29, 30, 254; and a hermit, 
illustration, 29. 

Laureate, Jonson, 114; Southey, 200; 
Wordsworth, 203; Tennyson, 255, 
256; Tennyson's laureate poems, 255, 
267. 

Lay oj the Last Minstrel, The, 205, 208, 
265. 

Layamon, 30, 34. 

Lays of Ancient Rome, 242. 

L'Envoi, 239. 

Letters from a Citizen of the World, 180. 



"Lewis Carroll," 259. See Charles 
Lutwidge Dodgson. 

Life of Frederick II, Carlyle's, 267. 

Light that Failed, The, 238. 

Lilliput, in Gulliver's Travels, 165, 166. 

Litany, Herrick's, 136. 

Litchfield, map i, Db; 175. 

Literature of the Great War, 261. 

Literary Club, 178-182, passim. 

"Literary Dictator of England" (John- 
son), 178. 

Little Neil, in Dickens's works, 224-225. 

Lives of saints, 21, 23, 24. 

Lives of the Poets, 175, 179, 195. 

Lives, Walton's, 137. 

Locksley Hall, 254. 

London, map 1, Ec; 95, 96, 97, 98, 105, 
no; Great Fire of, 147; 159, 161; 
173; 176; 179; 180; 218; 226; 229; 
244. 

London Magazine, 218. 

Lorna Doone, 260. 

Lost Leader, The, 252. 

Lotus-Eaters, The, 254. 

Lovelace, Richard, 132, 133; account 
of, 134; 151- 

Love's Labour 'i Lost, 98. 

Lucrece, 98. 

Ludlow Castle, map i, Cb; 121. 

Lutherans, 163. 

Lycidas, 120, 121. 

Lyell, Sir Charles, 258. 

Lyly. John, account of, 82-83; 89; 100; 

lOI. 

Lyrical Ballads, 198-199. 

Lyrics, after the Conquest, 31-32, 34; 
of the dramatists, 90, loi, 102; of 
Burns, 92; progress of lyric poetry, 
262. See Hymns. 

Lytton, Edward Bulwer, 258. 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, account, 

240-242; portrait, 240; 258; 264; 

266. 
Magellan, 69. 

Maggie, in The Mill on the Floss, 230. 
Malory, Sir Thomas, 53, 54, 64, 66, 254. 
Mandalay, 239. 
Mandeville, Sir John, account of, 37- 

39; on his voyage, illustration, 38; 

50. 
Man Who Was, The, 239." 
Man Who Would Be King, The, 239. 
March, Earl of, 26. 
Marlborough, Duke of, 159. 
Marlowe, Christopher, account of, 90- 

91; 95; 100; 102. 
Marmion. 205, 208, 265. 
Mary Queen of Scots, 79, 91. 



422 



INDEX 



Mary. See William and Mary. 

Masefield, John, 261. 

Masque of Oberon, 113. 

Masques, account of, 76-77; loi; of 
Jonson, 113. 

May Queen, The, 253. 

Medley, 254. 

Men and Women, 251. 

Merchant of Venice, The, 99, 100. 

Mermaid Inn, 105. 

Metre, Old English, 5, 7: of ballads, 
57, 67; of early Elizabethan drama, 
82; need of a standard, 89, loi ; 
blank verse triumphs, 90, 102; 5- 
beat line, 171; influence of Pope's, 
171. 195- 

"Michael Angelo Titmarsh" (Thack- 
eray), 226. 

Middle Ages, 212. 

Middlemarch, 230. 

Midland dialect, employed by Chaucer, 
50. 51- 

Midsiiiiiinir MkIiI's Dream, A, 98. 

Mill on llir /-/.'sv, The, 230. 

Milton, John, account of (before 1660), 
1 19-123; after 1660, 123-124; por- 
trait, 119; Herbert compared with, 
125; later years of, 140-143; sonnet 
on his blindness, 142; Bunyan com- 
pared with, 143, 146; Dryden com- 
pared with, 149-150; 152. 

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The, 
205. 

Miracle plays, 61, 66, 67. See Mys- 
teries. 

Miscellanies, the Elizabethan, 88, loi. 
See Tottel's Miscellany - 

Missalonghi, 210. 

Missionaries, from Rome, 6; from Ire- 
land, 8; Beowulf changed by the 
teachings of, 6, 24. 

Modern Painters, 245-246. 

Modest Proposal, A, 165. 

Monks, disobedience of the, 21. 

Monthly Magaziw', 224. 

Moonstone, The, 260. 

Moral Essays, Pope's, 158. 

Moralities, account of, 61-63; 66; 67; 
76; 82; loi; 112. 

More, Sir Thomas, account of, 71-74; 
portrait, 72; 77; 100; loi. 

Morris, William, 257. 

Morte d'Arthur, 54; printed by Caxton, 
64; 66; as treated by Tennyson, 254. 

Moses, in The Vicar of Wakefield, 224. 

Moslems, 39. 

Mr. Britling Sees it Through, 261 . 

Mr. Micawber, in Dickens's works. 225. 

Mr. Minns and his Cousin, 224. 



Munera Pulveris, 246. 

Murder Considered as One of the Fine 

Arts, 220. 
Music, in the Elizabethan days, 89. 
Mystery plays, account of, 57-61; 76; 

illustration, 58; 61; 66; 76; 82; loi. 

See Miracle plays. 

Nature, loved by the Norman-English, 
31; by Milton, 120; by Surrey, 120; 
by Vaughan, 128; by Taylor, 131; in 
the eighteenth century, 186; inter- 
preted by Wordsworth, 202-203. 

Nelson, Southey's Life of, 200. 

Newbolt, Henry, 260. 

Newcomes, The, 228. 

Newman, John Henry, 258; portrait, 
259-. 

New Place, 105. 

"New poet" (Spenser), 85. 

New Testament, Tyndale's translation 
of, 73. loi. 

"New verse," 260-261. 

New World, 81, 92. 

Night Piece, 136. 

Noble Numbers, 135, 136, 137. 

"Noll" (Goldsmith), 180. 

Norman Conquest, a gain to England, 
25; effect on language, 26, 27, 34; 
effect on literature, 27, 34, 58, 68, 
258. 

Norman-English Period, 25-34. 

Normans, character of, 25, 27, 28, 29. 

Northumbria, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17; Chris- 
tianity taught in, 22. 

Northwest Passage, 69. 

Norton, Thomas, 79, 1 00, 1 01. 

Novel, Century of the, 197-268; re- 
quirements of the, 171-172; first real 
novel, 172, 195. 

Novum Organum. 109. 

Noyes, Alfred, 260. 

Ode on the Death of the Duke of Welling- 
ton, 255. 

Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, 
203. 

Ode to a Grecian Urn, 213. 

Ode to the Pillory, 168. 

Ode to the West Witid, 211. 

Odin, I. 

Odyssey, translated by Pope, 156. 

Old English compared with modern 
English, 6. 

Old Familiar Faces, The, 216. 

Old Testament, translated by Tyndale, 
73- 

Oliver Twist, 224. 

Olney, map 1, Db; 188. 



INDEX 



423 



On the Late Massacre in Piedmont, 123. 
On the Study of Poetry, 249. 
On the Sublime and Beautiful, 183. 
Ordeal of Richard Feverel, The, 231. 
Origin of Species, 258. 
Orm, 28. 

Ormulum, 28, 30, 34. 
Orosius, .18. 

Oxford, map 1, Db; University o'', 26, 
68, 95, 108, 210, 218, 245. 

Pacific, visited by English sailors, 81. 
Padua, 180. 

Pamela, 172-173. iQS. 227. 
Pamphlets, of Milton, 121-122, 151 ; of 

Swift, 164. 
Paracelsus. 250. 
Paradise Lost, 141-143, 150, 152, 241, 

262. 
Paradise of Dainty Devices, The, 88. 
Paradise Regained, 142. 
Paris, 180. 
Parliament, submits to Henry VIII, 73; 

takes Defoe seriously, 168; 223; 241. 
Parson, the, in Chaucer, illustration, 48. 
Pastime with Good Company, 70. 
Pastorals, 83, 84, 86, 88, loi, 113. 
Pater, Walter, 258. 
Patronage, literary, ended by Johnson, 

176-177, 195. 
Peasants' Revolt, 37, 50. 
Pembroke, Countess of, 86. 
Pen, Age of the, 257-260. 
People's Century, 52-67. 
Percy, Bishop Thomas, 187; 204. 
Percy's Reliques. 187, 196, 204. 
Periodicals, the beginning of, 171, 195. 
Peter, in The Tale of a Tub. 163. 
Peter Bell, 203. 
Petrarch, 44. 
Phenixs Nest, The, 88. 
Phyllyp Spar owe, 71. 
Picaresque stories of Defoe, i;i. 
Pickwick Papers, The, 224, 266. 
Pied Piper of Hamelin, The, 252. 
Piers Plowman, Vision of, 39-41, 50. 
Pilgrimages in Chaucer's time, 44. 
Pilgrim's Progress. The, 143, 144-146, 

150, 152, 171, 241. 
Pippa Passes. 250-251. 
Plague Year, Defoe's Journal of the, 171. 
Plain Tales from the Hills, 237, 238. 
Plautus, comedies of, 78. 
Pliable, in Pilgrim's Progress, 143. 
Poems. Chiefly Lyrical. 253. 
Poets' Corner, illustration, 263. 
Poland, 86. 
Pope, Alexander, account of, 153-158; 

portrait, 154; love for Swift, 166; 



171; influence upon literature, 171; 
Goldsmith compared with, 182; 
Pope's ideas of nature, 187, 189; 194- 
195; 196. 

Portia, in The Merchant of Venice, 100. 

Powell, Mary, 122. 

Pra:tcrita, 246. 

Prague, 86. 

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 257. 

"Prewdence," Herrick's maid, 135. 

Pride and Prejudice, 222. 

Princess. The, 254. 

Principles of Geology, 258. 

Printing introduced into England, 63- 
65; early printing press, illustration, 
65; 67; spreads knowledge of the 
classics, 69; office of 1619, illustra- 
tion, 123. 

Prioress, The, in Canterbury Tales, il- 
lustration, 45. 

Prisoner of Chillon, The, 209. 

Prologue, Chaucer's, 46, 47. 

Prometheus Unbound, 210. 

Proper names, Marlowe's use of, 91. 

Prose, Old English, 12-21 ; 24; in Lyly's 
dramas, 89; becomes literature in 
Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, 95; 
Century of, 153-196; of early period- 
icals, 171; progress of, 262. 

Prospice. 252, 262. 

Psalms, in the "authorized version," 
109. 

Pulley, The. 126. 

Punch, 226. 

Puritan, 131. 

Puritans, in controversy with the 
Church of England, 95; power of, 
increases, 116-117; against the king, 
121; confidence of, in Milton, 122; 
lose power, 123-124; 134; oppose 
amusements, 139, 151; caricatured 
in Hubidras, 139, 152; and Royal- 
ists, Century of the, 103-152. 

Pitt Yourself in His Place, 260. 

Quarterly Review, criticises Keats, 213; 

established, 221; 266. 
Queen Anne, times of, 155, 158, 163; 

171, 195. 
"Queens' Gardens, ' 246. 

Rabbi Ben Ezra, 252. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, as a colonizer, 92 ; 

visits Spenser, 92; account of, 106; 

151- 
Ralph Roister Dotster, 78; compared 

with Gorboduc, 80; loi. 
Rambler, The, 177. 
Ramsay, Allan, 190. 



424 



INDEX 



Rape of the Lock, The, 155-156, 157- 

Rasselas, 177. 

Reade, Charles, 259-260. 

Rebecca, in Ivanhoe, 230. 

Rebecca and Rowena, 228. 

Recessional, 239. 

Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, 64. 

Red Cross Knight, in the Faerie Queene, 

illustration, 93. 
Reflections on the French Revolution, 1 84. 
Reform Bill, 223. 
Reign of Terror, 184. 
Religio Laid, 148, 149. 
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 186, 

196, 204. 
Renaissance, 68, 69, 70, 74, 75, loi- 
Restoration, The, 138-139; drama of, 

146-147, 152. 
"Retouching" of plays, 97, 98, no. 
Return of the Native, The, 233. 
Revelation, in the " authorized version," 

no, 141. 
Revolution, French, 198. 
Rewriting of old poems, in Alfred's 

time, 21, 24; to make pastorals, 86. 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 178, 181. 
Rhoda Fleming, 231. 
Rhone, described by Ruskin, 247. 
Rhyme, contrasted with alliteration, 6; 

used by Chaucer, 51 ; used by the 

dramatists, 89. 
Rhyme of the Duchess May, 249. 
"Rhyme royal," 53. 
Richard III, More's Life of, 72. 
Richardson, Samuel, account of, 172- 

173; portrait, 172; Goldsmith reads 

proof for, 180; 194; 195; 221. 
Riddles, of Cynewulf, 11. 
"Rime-giver," 7. 
Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 198-199, 

265. 
Ring and the Book, The, 251, 267. 
River of Death, in Pilgrim's Progress, 

144- 
Robertson, William, account of, 184; 

185; 194; 195. 
Robin Hood ballads, 32-33, 34. 204- 
Robinson Crusoe, 167; account of, 169- 

170; 171; 195- 
Roderick Random, 174, 195. 
Roman Catholic Church. See Church 

of Rome. 
Roman Empire, Gibbon's History of the 

Decline and Fall of the, 185. 
Romances, 29-31, 34. 
Romans, 14: writings of, 68; in plays 

of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, 112. 
Romantic revival, 185-186, 196. 
Rome, missionaries from, 6; visited by 



abbot of Jarrow, 13 ; Bede sends to, 
14; visited by Alfred, 17, 42; plays 
of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson laid 
in, 112; 211; 212. 

Romeo and Juliet, 100. 

Romola, 230. 

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 257. 

Round Table, 254. 

Rowena, in Ivanhoe, 230. 

Royalists, 122, 134; Century of Puri- 
tans and, 103-152. 

Rugby, map i, Db; 248. 

Rugby Chapel, 248. 

Runes, 10. 

Ruskin, John, 240 ; account of, 245-247 ; 
Arnold compared with, 248; 264; 
266; 267. 

Rymenhild, in King Horn, 31. 

Sackville, Thomas, 79, 100, loi. 

Sad Shepherd, The, 113 ■ 

Saint Cecilia's Day, 149. 

St. Patrick's Cathedral, 164. 

St. Paul's, 117. 

Saints' Everlasting Rest, The, 131. 

Samoa, home of Stevenson, 237. 

Samson A gonistes, 142. 

Saracens, in King Horn, 30, 31. 

Sartor Resartus, 243, 245. 

Satan, in the homilies, 21; in the mys- 
tery plays. 59, 60; in the moralities, 
62, 64; in Paradise Lost, 141. 

Satire, of Dryden, 148; of Pope, 157- 
158; of Swift, 163-164, 165; of Defoe, 
167. 

Saxon, church, dedication of, illustra- 
tion, 20; words used by Ruskin, 237. 

Sa.xons, i. 

Scenes from Clerical Life, 229. 

School, Bede's, 12; schools in Ireland, 
22. 

Scop, 2-3. 

Scotch, Johnson's prejudice against, 
176. 

Scotland, 52; home of the ballads, 57; 
oats in, 176; visited by Johnson, 179: 
Robertson's History of, 184: love of 
nature in poets of, 186; 189; 190; 195. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 202; portrait, 204; 
account of, 203-207; 208; 214; 222; 
223 ; " George Eliot " compared with, 
230; 264; 265. 

Selkirk, Alexander, 169. 

Seneca, read in England, 79. 

Sentimental Journey, The, 174-175. 

Sequence of sonnets, 94. 

Sesame and Lilies, 246. 

Shakespeare, John, 95-96. 

Shakespeare, William, 79; Marlowe 



INDEX 



425 



compared with, 92; account of, 95- 
100; portrait, 99; 102; in the seven 
teenth centurj', 103-106, no; aids 
Ben Jonson, in; contrasted with 
Ben Jonson, in, 112; contrasted 
with Beaumont and Fletcher, 114; 
piays collected and printed, 115; 
"wit-combats" of, 115; Dryden com- 
pared with, 148; 150; 151; Pope 
compared with, 155; works edited by 
; Johnson, 179; Thackeray compared 
with, 227; 228; 262, 265. 

"Shakespeare's Country," 229. 

Shaw, George Bernard, 260. 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 202, 203; ac- 
count of, 210-212; 214; 218; 223; 
264; 265. 

Shepherd's Calendar, The. 84, 85, loi. 

She Sloops to Conquer, 182-183. 

Short History of the English People, 
Green's, 258. 

Shortest Way with Dissenters, The, 167. 

Shottery, 96. 

Shylock, in The Merchant of Venice, 100. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 82, 84; account of, 
86-88; portrait, 87; mourning for, 
92, 97; sonnets, 94; 100; loi. 

Silas Marner, 230. 

Silex Scintillans, 127. 

Sir Charles Grandison, 173. 

Sir Patrick Spens, 204. 

Sir Roger de Coverley, in the Spectator, 
162 195. 

Skelton, John, account of, 70-71; 76, 
100; lOI. 

Sketches by Boz, 224. 

Slough of Despond, in Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress, 144. 

Smollett, Tobias George, account of, 
173-174; 194; 195:221. 

Soldiers Three, 238. 

Songs of the dramatists, 88-89, 102; 
of Burns, 192, 193, 196. See Lyrics. 

Sonnet, introduced by Wyatt and 
Surrey, 75; decade of, 94, 102; Sid- 
ney's, 94; loi; Shakespeare's, 103- 
104; 151; Milton's, 123. 

Sonnets from the Portuguese, 251. 

South America, 69. 

Southey, Robert, 197; account of, 199- 
200; 203; 214; 223; 264. 

Southward, 44. 

Spain, 81, 134. 

Specimens of Dramatic Poets Contem- 
porary with Shakespeare, 216. 

Spectator, The, 162, 171, 195. 

Speech on Conciliation with America, 
183, 184. 

Spenser, Edmund, account of, 82-86; 



in Ireland, 91 ; 92; plan of the Faerie 
Queene, 93-94; sonnets, 94; 98; 100; 
loi; 212; Ruskin compared with, 
247- 

Spezzia, Bay of, 211. 

Squire, the, in Canterbury Tales, illus- 
tration, 47. 

Steele, Sir Richard, Defoe compared 
with, 167; Johnson compared with, 
177. See Addison and Steele. 

"Stella," 166-167. 

Steps lo the Altar, 126. 

Sterne, Laurence, account of, 174-175; 
, 194; 195- 

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 231; account 
of, 235-237; portrait, 235; 264; 266. 

Stones of Venice, 246. 

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 
The, 236. 

Stratford, map i, Db; 95; 96; 105; 
Shakespeare returns to, 106; no; 
acting forbidden in, 116. 

Suckling, Sir John, 132; account of, 
133-134; 151. 

Superannuated Man, The, 217. 

Surrey, Earl of, account of, 74-76; 82; 
100; loi ; treatment of nature com- 
pared with Milton's, 120. See Wyatt. 

Susquehanna, 198, 200. 

Sweden, 3, 134. 

Swift, Jonathan, 160; account of, 163- 
167; portrait, 165; Defoe compared 
with, 167; 194; 195. 

Swinburne, .-Mgernon Charles, 257. 

Synge, John M., 260. 

Tabard Inn, 44. 

Tale of a Tub, The, 163-164. 

Tales from Shakespeare, 216, 265. 

Tamburlaine, 90-91 . 

Tam O'Shanter, 191, 193, 196. 

Task, The, 188. 

Taller, The, 160-161, 162, 171, 195. 

Taylor, Jeremy, account of, 130-13 1; 

Tempest, The, 103. 

Temple, Sir John, 163, 164, 166. 

Temple, The, 125-126. 

Tennyson, Alfred, 249; account of, 252- 

257; portrait, 253; 262; 264; 267. 
Tess of the D'Urbervilles, 234. 
Teutons, 1-3, 6, 7; compared with Celts, 

22, 23; 25, 40. 
Thackeray, William Makepeace, 223; 

account of, 226-228; portrait, 227; 

264; 266. 
Thalaba, 200. 

Thames, map i, DEc; 157. 
Thanet, Christianity preached on, 6. 



426 



INDEX 



Thank.sKmnfi,A. 135- 

Tlu-atrc, first, 82; Globe, 105. 

Tkculrcs, closed, 115-116, 151; flung 
open, 146, 152; abandoned to care- 
less and immoral, 117, 151. 

Thor, I. 

Tintcrn Abbey, 199. 

To Althea, 134. 

To a Skylark, 211. 

Tom Broivn at Rugby, 248. 

Tom Jones, 173. 

Tories, 160, 163. 

Totters Miscellany, 75, 100, loi, 132. 

Tracy, Herrick's dog, 135. 

Translations, Bede's Gospel of Si. John, 
15, 24; Alfred's, 18, 19, 24; Wace's 
History of the Kings of Britain, 29- 
30; French Romances into English, 
30; 33; Mandcvillc's Travels. 38; Wy- 
clif's Bible, 73; Surrey's .Eneid, 75; 
inspired by the Renaissance, 81; 
Dryden's ALneld, 149, 171; Pope's 
Iliad and Odyssey, 156; "George 
Eliot's," 229; Carlvle's, 243. 

Traveller, The, 180-181. 

Travels with a Donkey, 236. 

Treasure Island, 235. 

Tribe of Ben, 114. 

Tristram Shandy, 174, 195. 

Trollope, Anthony, 259. 

Turks capture Constantinople, 68; the 
Greeks rise against, 210, 265. 

Turner, William, 245. 

Twickenham, map i, Dc; 157. 

Tyndale, William, 73-74, 100, loi. 

Tyndall, John, 258. 

Tyne, River, map i, CDa; 17. 

Udall, Nicholas, 78, 100, loi. 
Unities, classic, iii, 114. 
Universities, their weakness discovered 

by Bacon, 107. See Cambridge and 

Oxford. 
"University wits," 90. 
Unto this Last, 246. 
Uriah Heep, in Dickens's works, 225. 
Utopia, 72-73- 

Vailima, home of Stevenson, 237. 

Valhalla, i. 

Valkyries, i. 

Valley of Humiliation, in Pilgrim's 
Progress, 144. 

Valley of the Shadow of Death, in Pil- 
grim's Progress, 144. 

Vanity Fair, 144, 227. 

Vassar, Matthew, 168. 

Vaughan, Henry, 124, 126; account of, 
127-129; 150; 151. 



Venus and Adonis, 98. 

Venus de Medici, 202. 

Vercelli Book, 8, 24. 

"Vers fibre," 261. 

Vicar of Wakefield, The, iSo, 181, 224. 

Vice, the, 61, 77. 

Victorian Age, the, 223, 226, 252; 

267. 
Virginibus Puerisque, 236. 
Vision of Piers Plowman, 39-41, 43; 

50. 

Wace. 29-30, 34. 

Waerferth, 18, 19. 

Walsh. William, advises Pope, 154-155. 

Walton, Izaak, account of, 137-138, 

isi; 152. 

War of the Roses, 54, 66. 

Warwickshire, 229. 

Water Babies, 258. 

Waverley, 206, 222, 265. 

We are Seven, 199; 265. 

Webster. John. no. 

Wee Willie Winkie. 239. 

Weir of Ilcrmiston. The, 237. 

Wells, Herbert George. 260; 261. 

Welsh, Jane. See Mrs. Carlyle. 

Westminster, 65. 

Westminster Abbey, 183. 

Westminster Review, 229. 

Weston, 188. 

Westward Ho, 258. 

Whigs, pension Addison, 158; 159; 

160; 163. 
Whitby, map i, Da; 8. 
" Wicked wasp of Twickenham' ' (Pope), 

157. 166. 
Widsith, 7, 23, 262. 

Wife of Bath, in Canterbury Tales, il- 
lustration, 46. 
William and Mary, 167. 
William the Conqueror, 23. 
"Will's" ooffee house, 153. 
Wilson, John, 218, 266. 
Winchester, map i, Dc; 19. 
Winter's Tale, The, 103. 
Wishes to His (Supposed) Mistress, 

126. 
Witches and Other Night Fears, 217. 
"Wit-combats" between Shakespeare 

and Jonson, 115. 
Wolsey, Cardinal, 70. 
Woman in White, The, 260. 
Worcester, map 1, Cb; 18. 
Wordsworth, Dorothy, 198. 
Wordsworth, William, account of, 197- 

199, 202-203; portrait, 197; 207; 

208; 214; 218; 223; 261; 262; 264; 

265. 



INDEX 



427 



H'orld, R&le\gh'& History of the, 106. 

World, The, 127. 

World War, literature inspired bv the, 

261. 
Worthies of England, The, 130. 
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, account of, 74-76; 



and Surrey introduce Italian regard 
for form, 74, 82, 100; loi. 
Wyclif, John, account of, 41-43; por- 
trait, 41, 51. 

^■cats, William Butler, 260. 



AMERICA'S LITERATURE 



Abbott, Jacob, account of, 398. 

Abbott, John S. C, 323. 

Adam, 274, 394. 

Adams, Henry, 395. 

Adams, John, 288. 

.Eneid, imitated by Mather, 279. 

Ages, The, 309. 

.4/ Aaraaf, 371. 

Albany, 386. 

Alcott, Amos Bronson, 314; portrait, 
315; 327. 

Alcott, Louisa May, account of, 398. 

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, account of, 
385-386. 

Alhambra, The, 302. 

Allan, John, 368. 

Allen, James Lane, 378. 

America, 271, 290; as a subject for lit- 
erary composition, 285; 291-292: 
progress in, 298; 301 ; 302; 307; 308; 
310; 314; 353: 354; 356; 377- 

American Flag, The, 310-311. 

American literature, beginning of, 272; 
283-284. 

American Philosophical Society, 2S6. 

American Revolution, Sparks's History 
of, 353- 

American Scholar, The, 317. 

Among the Hills, 332. 

Analogy of Religion, 333. 

Annabel Lee, 370. 

Annapolis, 354. 

Antiquity of Freedom, The, 309. 

Anti slavery movement, 329-330; 337; 
338. 

Anti-slavery writers, 329-338. 

Apple Tree, The, 309. 

.Arnold, Matthew, 371 ; 3S3. 

"Artemus Ward," 393. 

Arthur Mervyn, 296. 

Astor, John Jacob, 310. 

Atlantic Monthly, The, 346; founded, 
348: 351; 382; 386. 

Atlantic Ocean, 301 ; 302. 

Autobiography, Franklin's, 288; 297. 

".Autocrat," portrait, 348; 349; 350. 

A utocral of the Breakfast Table, 349; 351 . 



Baby Bell, 385. 

Baby's Age, 367. 

Bacon, Francis, 271. 

Ballad of the Trees and the Master, A, 

372. 
Baltimore, 372; 384. 
Bancroft, George, 324; account of, 353- 

354: 355: 357; 358; 359; 361; 362. 
Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 395. 
Barbary, 298. 
Barefoot Boy, The, 332. 
Barlow, Joel, account of, 293-294; 297. 
Bay Psalm Book, The, account of, 273- 

274; 282; 283; 284. 
Beacon Hill, 316. 
Bede, 279. 
Bedouin Song. 383. 
Beecher, Dr. Lyman, 333. 
Belfry Pigeon, The, 312. 
Belknap, Jeremy, 359; 362. 
Bells, The, 370. 
Berlin, 354. 
Biglow Papers, The, 345; 350-35i; 

394- 
Bird, The, 359. 
Bird, William, 282-283; 284. 
Blackstone, Sir WUliam, 347. 
Blind Preacher, The, 364. 
Blithcdalc Romance, The, 325. 
Boston, 276; 278; 285; 287; 308; 316; 

324; 330; 367- 
Boston Hymn, 318. 
Boston News Letter, The, 283. 
Bowdoin College, 323; 333; 340; 350. 
Boylston Prize, 348. 
Brace bridge Hall, 302. 
Bradford, William, 272; 283; 284. 
Bradstreet, xAnne, account of, 275-276; 

283; 284. 
Bridge, Horatio, 324. 
Brook Farm, account of, 322-323:325; 

327:360. 
Brown, Alice, 378. 
Brown, Charles Brockden, account of, 

296; 297; compared with Hawthorne, 

326. 
Brown, Charles Farrar, 393. 



428 



INDEX 



Bryant, Dr. Peter, 308. 
Bryant, William Cullen, account of, 
307-309; 312; 313. 

BuildiiiK of (lie Ship, The, 341. 

Bunker Hill, 33,(3. 

Burlington, 303. 

Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 380. 

Burns, Robert, Freneau compared with, 

295; 330. 
Burroughs, John, 396; portrait, 397. 
Butler, Bishop Joseph, 333. 
Butler, Samuel, Trumbull compared 

with, 293. 

Cable, George Washington, 377. 

Calhoun, John Caldwell, 364. 

California, 378; 385. 

Call of the Wild, The, 380. 

Cambridge, 308; illustration, 339; 341; 
371- 

Cambridge Poets, The, 339-341- 

Carlyle, Thomas, 314. 

Cask of Amontillado. The. 369; 370. 

Cavalry Crossing a Ford, 389. 

Century, The, 382. 

Chambered Nautilus, The, 341 . 

Channing, William Ellery, 314; por- 
trait, 315: 327- 

"Charles Egbert Craddock, ' 377. 

Charleston. 364. 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 320. 

Cheever, Geoi:ge B., 323. 

Child, Francis James, 397. 

Children, literature for, in colonial 
times, 276-277; in recent years, 394- 
395- 

Choate, Rufus, 336, 337; 338. 

Churchill, Winston, 380. 

Civil War, 334; 36s; 372. 

Clark, William, 298. 

Clay, Henry, 364. 

Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, 394. 

Clifford, in The House of the Seven Ga- 
bles, 326. 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. 314; 317. 

Colonial Period, 271-284. 

Columbia, 292. 

Columhiad, The, 294; 297. 

Columbus. Life of, Irving's, 302. 

Commemoralion Ode, 346. 

Common Seiise, 290. 

Companions of Columbus, The, 302. 

Compensation. 316; 318. 

Concord, 317; 318; 323; 344; 394- 

Concord Hymn, 318. 

Concord River, 320. 

Condensed Novels, 386. 

Confederate Army, 365; 372; 374. 

Connecticut, 292; 310; 332. 



Conquest of Canaan, The, 292 ; 297. 
Conquest df Granada, The, 302. 
Conquest of Mexico, The, 355. 
Conquest of Peru, The, 355. 
Conspiracy of Ponliac, The, 358. 
Constitution (frigate), 347. 
Constitution, of the United States, 

354- 
Contemplation, 276. 
Contentment, 349. 
Cooke, John Esten, 377. 
Cooke, Rose Terry, 378. 
Cooper, James Fenimore, account of, 

303-307; portrait, 304; 309; 310, 

312; 313; compared with Simms, 

364-365 ; 374- 
"Cooper of the South," 364; 374. 
Cooperstown, 303, 306; 394. 
Cotter's Saturday Night, The, 331. 
Cotton Boll, The, 367. 
Courtship of Miles Standish, The, 341; 

350. 
"Crackers," 377. 
Craigenputtock, 317. 
Craigie House, 341; illustration, 342. 
Cranford, 380. 

Crawford, Francis Marion, 377. 
Croakers, The. 310; 311. 
Crothers, Samuel JNIcChord, 396. 
Culprit Toy. The. 3\o. 
Cummington, 307. 
Curtis, Cleorge Wilhani. 359; 360-361; 

362:392. 

Dana, Richard Henry, 308; 309; 359; 
362. 

Dandelion. The. 346. 

Dante, 341; 397- 

Dartmouth College, 331; 347; 348. 

Day of Doom. The. 274; 275; 284. 

Declaration of Independence, 285; 290. 

Deerslayer, the. 307. 

Defoe, Daniel, compared with Poe, 3^9. 

D eland, Mrs. Margaret, 381. 

Dial, The. 314; 327. 

Dictionary. Webster's, 361 ; 362. 

Diedrich Knickerbocker, 299, 300. 

Discoverer. The. 385. 

Dismal Swamp, 283. 

Divine Comedy. The, translated by 
Longfellow, 341; by Norton, 397. 

Donne, John, compared with Mather, 
279. 

Drake, Joseph Rodman, account of, 
310-311; 312; 313- 

Dunne, Finlcv Peter, 393- 

Dutch Republic, The Rise of the. Mot- 
ley's, 356. 

Dwight, Timothy, 292; 293; 297. 



INDEX 



429 



Each and All, 318. 

Easy Chair, 360; 362. 

Ecclesiastical History, Bede's, 279. 

Edinburgh, 286. 

Edwards, Jonathan, account of, 280- 

282; portrait, 281; 283; 284; 292; 

297. 
Eggleston, Edward, 378; 395. 
Egypt, 320. 
Eliot, 282: 284. 
Elizabeth, Queen, 360. 
Elmwood, illustration, 344. 
Elsie Venner, 349. 
Embargo, The. 307. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 315; account 

of, 316-318; 319; 320; 327. 
England, 271; 272; 274; 283; 285; 286; 

295; 300; 301; 305; 314; 346; 351; 

354:357; 362. 
EnKlish ami Scottish Ballads, 398. 
English Lands, Letters, and Kings, 360. 
Essav on the Human Understanding, 

280. 
Eternal Goodness, The, 332. 
Europe, 302; 311; 312; 316; 317; 340; 

353- 
Eutaw Springs, 295. 
Evangeline, 341; 350. 
Evening Post, The, 300; 309; 313. 
Everett, Edward, 334-33^; 337; 338. 
Every Saturday, 386. 
Exile's Departure, The, 330. 

Fable for Critics, A, 345; 350. 

Fall of the House of Usher, The, 369. 

Farewell Address, Washington's, 290. 

"Father of American History," 272. 

"Father of American Poetry," 309; 
313. 

Faust, translated by Taylor, 384. 

Federalist, The, 291; 297. 

Felton, Cornelius, 397. 

Ferdinand and Isabella, Prescott's His- 
tory of the Reign of, 354-355- 

Fiction, recent, 376-382. 

Field, Eugene, 391. 

Fields, James T., 325. 

Fiske, John, 395; 396. 

Flood of Years, The. 309. 

Foote, Mary Hallock, 380. 

Forbearance, 318. 

France, 285; 286; 300; 357; 362. 

Franklin, Benjamin, account of, 285- 
288; portrait, 286; 290; 297; 300. 

Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins, 378. 

Free Press. The, 330; 338. 

Freneau, Philip, account of, 294-295; 
compared with Brown, 296; 297. 

Friends, 283. See Quakers. 



Fringed Gentian, The, 309. 
Froissart, Jean, 323; 372. 
Fuller, Margaret, 314. 
Fulton, Robert, 298. 
Furness, Horace Howard, 397. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 329; 330; 331 ; 

334; 337; 338. 
Gates Ajar, The, 378. 
Gentleman from Indiana. The, 380. 
"Geoffrey Crayon," 301. 
Georgia, 3/1 ; 377- 
Gilder, Richard Watson, 391. 
Goldsmith, Irving's Life of, 302-303. 
Grandissimes, The, ^tj. 

Hale, Edward Everett, 377. 

Halleck, Fitz-Greenc, account of, 310- 

311; 312; 313- 
Hamilton, Alexander, 290; portrait, 

291; 297. 
Hannah Binding Shoe';, 390. 
Harper's Masa'J:ic. 360, 382. 
Hariis, Eerjamin, 276. 
Harris, Joel Chardi , 377. 
Harrison, Henry Sydnor, 381. 
Harte, Francis Bict, account of, 386- 

387. 
"Hartford Wits," account of, 291-294; 

297. 
Harvard, 278; 283; 286; 309; 316; 317; 

318; 340; 341; 346; 347; 348; 350; 

351; 353; 354; 355- 
Hasty Pudding, The, 294; 297. 
Hawkes, Clarence, 396. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 316; account 

of. 322-327; portrait, 323; 327-328; 

361 ; 384- 
Hay, John, 390. 
Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 364; account 

of, 365-367; 374- 
Hayne, Robert Young, 336; 364. 
Henry, Patrick, 288-289; illustration, 

289; 297; Wirt's Life of, 364. 
Hepzibah, in The House of the Seven 

Gables, 326. 
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 358; 

371; 395- 
Hildreth, Richard, 359; 362. 
Historians of 1815-1865, 352-362. 
Historical novel, the, 380. 
Histories, early American, 271-273; 

284. 
History of Neiv England, Palfrey's, 359; 

Winthrop's, 273. 
History of New Hampshire, Belknap's, 

359- 
History of Plymouth Plantation, Brad- 
ford's, 272. 



430 



INDEX 



History of Spanish Literalure, Ticknor's, 
352. 

History oj the American Revolution, 
Sparks's, 353. 

History of the Pacific Coast, H. H. Ban- 
croft's, 395. 

History of the People of the United States, 
395- 

History of the Reigfi of Ferdinand and 
Isabella, Prescott's, 354-355. 

History of the Reign of Philip the Second, 
Prescott's, 355: 362. 

History of the United Slates, Bancroft's, 
353-354; 362; llildrelh's, 350. 

History of the United Slates Navy, Coop- 
er's, 305. 

Holland, 272. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 339: 34o; ac- 
count of, 346-350; 351 ; 392. 

Home as Found, 306. 

Home Journal, 312. 

Home Pastorals, 383. 

Hoosier Schoolmaster, The, 378. 

House of Mirth, The, 381. 

House of the Seven Gables, The, 325 ; 326. 

Howells, William Dean, 376. 

How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's 
Bar, 387. 

Hudibras, M'Fingal, compared with, 
293- 

Hudson, river, 302; 303; 310. 

Humble Bee, The, 318. 

Humorous writings, 389-391. 

Hyperion, 340. 

Identity, 386. 

Iliad, translated by Bryant, 309. 

Indiana, 378. 

Indian Bible, 282. 

Indians, studied by Parkman, 357; 

treated by Freneau, 295; by Brown, 

296; by Cooper, 305; by Simms, 365; 

by Helen Hunt Jackson, 378. 
Innocents Abroad, 394. 
Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will, 281 . 
In School-Days, 332. 
Irving, Washington, account of, 299- 

303; portrait, 299; 305; 309; 312; 

313; 352; 357; 362:392. 
Italy, 300. 

Jackson, Helen Hunt, 380. 

James, Henry, 376-377. 

Jay, John, 290; portrait, 288; 297. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 290; 297. 

Jewett, Sarah Orne, 378. 

John of Barneveld, Life and Death of. 

Motley's, 357. 
John Ward, Preacher, 381. 



Johnston, Mary, 380. 
Johnston, Richard Malcolm, 377. 
Jonathan and David, 378. 
Jonathan Papers, The, 396. 
"Josh Billings," 393. 

Kentucky, 377. 
King Olaf, 311. 

Knickerbocker School, 298-313; 364. 
Knickerbocker s History of New York. 
300-301; 313. 

Lady or the Tiger, The, 381 . 

I^ake Country, 299. 

Lake Poets, 299. 

Lancashire, 380. 

Lanier, Sidney, account of, 371-374, 
375- 

Larcom, Lucy, 388. 

Last Leaf, The, 347. 

Leatherstocking, in several of Cooper's 
novels, 305. 

Leatherstocking Tales, 305. 

Leaves of Grass, 389. 

Lee, Richard Henry, 288; 297. 

Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The, 301. 

Letters of a British Spy, The, 364. 

Lewis, Meriwether, 298. 

Life and Death of John Barneveld, Mot- 
ley's, 357. 

Lije and H rilings of George Washing- 
ton, Sparks's, 353. 

Life of George Washington, Irving's, 302. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 334; Whitman's 
poem on, 388. 

Literary activity of the present, 376. 

Little Beach Bird, The, 359. 

Little Boy Blue, 391. 

Little Brothers of the Air, 396. 

Little Folks in Feathers and Fur, 396. 

Little Women, 314; 398. 

Liverpool, 325. 

Locke, David Ross, 393. 

Locke, John, 280. 

London, Jack, 380. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 279; 
317; 323; 327; 339; account of, 340- 
344; influence of his translations, 342 ; 
346; 350; 351; 352; 361; 362. 

Louisiana Purchase, 298. 

Lowell, James Russell, criticism of 
Bryant, 309; of Willis, 312; 339; ac- 
count of, 344-346; 350; 351; 392. 

Luck of Roaring Camp, The, 387. 

Lucy Books, 398. 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Emer- 
son compared with, 318. 
M'Fingal, 293; 297. 



NDEX 



431 



McMaster, John Bach, 395. 

Macon, 371. 

Madison, James, 290; portrait, 291 ; 297. 

Magazine article, 396. 

Magnalia Chrisli Americana, 279. 

Maine, 323; 340. 

Man Without a Country, The, 2,11- 

Marble Faun, The, 325; 328. 

March, Francis Andrew, 397. 

Marco Bozzaris, 311. 

Marjorie Daw, 386. 

"Mark Twain," criticises Cooper, 306- 

307; 394. See Clemens, S. L. 
Marks, Josephine Preston Peabody, 

391. 
Marshes of Glynn, The, 373. 
Maryland, 364. 
Massachusetts, 272; 273; 284; 298; 

307 ; 308; 31 7; 336 1353; 3<>i- 
Massachusetts Bay Colony, 273. 
Massachusetts Register, 346. 
Mather, Cotton, criticises Anne Brad- 
street, 276; account of, 278-280; 

compared with Edwards, 281; 283; 

284. 
Merry's Museum, 399- 
Metamorphoses, 271. 
Metres, introduced by Longfellow, 343; 

350. 
Miller, Olive Thome, 396. 
Mills, Enos A., 396. 
Minister's Wooing, The, 334. 
Minor authors of 1815-1865, 3S9-361; 

362. 
Minor Knickerbocker Poets, 310-312. 
Minor Poets since 1865, 390-392. 
Missouri Compromise, 329. 
Mitchell, Donald Grant, 359-360; 362 ; 

392. 
Morris, Elisabeth Woodbridge, 396. 
Mosses from an Old Manse. 324. 
Motley, John Lothrop, 353; account of, 

355-357; portrait, 35<-'; 359: 361; 362. 
Mountain and the Squirrel, The, 318. 
Muir, John, 396. 
Murfree, Mary Noailles, 377. 
Murray, John, 301; 356. 
My Aunt, 347. 

National Period, 298-399; later years 
of, 376-400. 

Natty Bumppo, 305. See Leather- 
stocking. 

Newbury, 279. 

New England, 273; the literary leader- 
ship returns to, 312; 313; 314; 315; 
327; 329; 334; 336: 338; 339; 350; 
352; 361; stories of life in, 378; Sted- 
man's idyls of, 383. 



New England, History of. Palfrey's, 359; 
Winthrop's, 273. 

New England Primer, The, account of, 
276-277; illustration, 277; 283; 284; 
399- 

New Hampshire, 336; History of, Bel- 
knap's, 359. 

New Haven, 278. 

New Jersey, 303. 

New Orleans, 377. 

Newspapers, colonial, 283. 

New World, 271 ; 301 ; 342. 

New York, 294; becomes a literary cen- 
tre, 298-299; 300; 303; 309; 310; 311 ; 
313; State, 303. 

New York Historical Society, 301. 

Nile Notes of a Howadji, 357. 

Nineteenth century, progress in early 
years of, 298. 

North America, 362. 

North American Review, 308; 346. 

Northampton, 280; 281. 

North Church, 278. 

Norton, Charles Eliot, 397. 

Note-Books, 325; 328. 

Captain, My Captain! 388. 

Odxssey, translated bv Bryant, 309. 

Oli'id Kivrr, \\^. 

Old I)..niini..n,377. 

Old Ironsides. 347; 348. 

Old Manse, 323. 

Oldlown Folks, 334. 

Old World, 272: 342: 362. 

Oni-Hoss Shay. The. 349. 

Opportunity. 391. 

Oratory "t the Revolutionary Period, 
288-289; 297; of New England, 334- 
337; 338; of the South, 363-364; 374. 

Oregon Trail, The. 357. 

Otis, James, 288; 297. 

Our Young Folks, 399. 

Outre Mer, 340. 

Overland Monthly, The, 386. 

Ovid, 271. 

Oxford, 286. 

Pacific Coast, H. H. Bancroft's History 

of the, 392. 
Packard, Winthrop, 396. 
Page, Thomas Nelson, 377. 
Paine, Thomas, 290; 297. 
Palfrey, John Gorham, 359; 362. 
Parker, Theodore, 314; portrait, 315; 

327- 
Parkman, Francis, 353 ; account of, 357- 

359; portrait, 358; 359; 361; 362. 
Parrhasius, 312. 
Parton, James, 395. 



432 



INDEX 



Past, The, 309. 

Paulding, James K., 300. 

Peabody Symphony Orchestra, 372; 
375- 

Pearl oj Orr's Island, The, 335. 

Pencilliiigs by the Way, 312. 

Pennsylvania, 285; 382. 

Pennsylvania, University of, 286. 

Personal Memoirs of Joan of Arc, 394. 

"Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby," 390. 

Phebe, child-friend of Whittier, 332. 

Phebe, in The House of i lie Seven Gables 
326. 

Phi Beta Kappa oration, Emerson's, 
317: 327- 

Phi Beta Kappa Society, 309. 

Philadelphia, 285; 288; 296; becomes a 
literary centre, 298; 313. 

Philadelphia Library, 286. 

Philip the Second, Hislory of the Reign 
of, Prescott's, 355; 357; 362. 

Phillips, Wendell, 336; 337; 338. 

Pierce, Franklin, 324; 325. 

Pike County Ballads, 390. 

Pilgrims, leave Holland, 272; 278. 

Pilgrim's Progress, The, 323. 

Pilot, The, 305. 

Pioneers, The, 305. 

Pioneers of France in the New World, 
358. 

Piper, The, 391. 

Plymouth, 272; 278; 307; 336. 

Plymouth Plantation, Bradford's His- 
tory of, 272. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, compared with 
Brown, 296; with Taylor, 381; with 
Lanier, 373 ; account of, 368-371 ; 374. 

Poems of the Orient, 382. 

"Poet-Laureate of the South," 365; 
374- 

Poetry since 1865, 380-389. 

Political pamphlets and essays of the 
Revolutionary Period, 290; 297. 

Poor Richard's Almanac, 287-288; 297. 

Pope, Alexander, 295. 

Portland, 340. 

Precaution, 304. 

Prescott, William Hickling, 353; ac- 
count of, 354-355; 357; 359; 361; 
362. 

Present Crisis, The, 346. 

Prince and the Pauper, The, 394. 

Princeton, 281. 

Professor, The, 349. 

Prospect of Peace, The, 293. 

Prue and I, 360. 

Psalm of Life, ^ , 341 . 

Psalms, 273; 274. 

Puritans, 272. 



Quakers, 329, 330; 331. 
Queed, 381. 

Rainy Day. The, 343. 

Ramona, 380. 

Raven, The, 370, 374. 

Realism in Fiction, 376; 377; 378. 

Reaper and the Flowers, The, 341. 

Renaissance, the, compared with tran- 
scendentalism, 315. 

Repplier, Agnes, 396. 

Reveries of a Bachelor, 360. 

Revolutionary Period, 285-297; 298. 

Rhodes, James Ford, 395. 

Rlwdora, The, 318. 

Richard Carvel, 380. 

Riggs, Kate Douglas Wiggin, 378. 

Riley, James Whitcomb, 391. 

Rip Van Winkle. 301; 326. 

Rise of the Dutch Republic, The, Mot- 
ley's. 356; 357. 

Rivulet, The. 309. 

Rogers, John, 276. 

Rollo Books, 398. 

.S7. Nicholas, 399. 

Salrm, 324; 327. 

Salmagundi, 300. 

Sandpiper. The, 359. 

Sandys, George, 271. 

Saturday Afternoon, 312. 

Savoy, 294. 

Scarlet Letter, The, 325; 327-328; 361. 

Schelling, Felix Emanuel, 397. 

Schouler, James, 395. 

Scott, Walter, 301; Irving compared 

with, 302. 
Scribner's Magazine, 382. 
Scudder, Horace Elisha, 395. 
Sebago Lake, 323. 
September Gale. The, 347. 
" Sever all Poems," account of, 275-276; 

illustration, 275. 
Sewall, Samuel, 280; 283; 284. 
Shakespeare, William, 271; 330; 345; 

372- 
Sharp, Dallas Lore, 396. 
Shaw, Henry Wheeler, 393; 397. 
Shillaber, Benjamin Penhallow, 393. 
Short Story, The, 381. 
Sill, Edward Rowland, 391. 
Simms, William Gilmore, account of, 

364-365; portrait, 365; 374. 
" Simple Cobbler of Agawam, The, "282. 
Single Poems, writers remembered by, 

398-399- 
Skeleton in Armor, The, 341; 350. 
Sketch Book, The. 301-302; 305; 313. 
Smith, John, 271. 



INDEX 



433 



Snow- Bound, 331-332; illustration, 

332; 338. 
Snow-Storm. The. 318. 
Song from a Drama. 385. 
Song of Hiawatha, The. 331; 350. 
Song of the Camp, 383. 
Song of the Challahooehee, 373. 
South America, 323. 
Southern writers of 1815-1865,363-375. 
Spain, 302:346; 351. 
Spanish Literature, History of, Tick- 

nor's,352. 
Sparks, Jared, 352; 353; 361; 362. 
Spectator, The. 287; 300. 
Spelling-book, Webster's, 361 ; 362. 
Spenser, Edmund, :i2S. 
Spy, The, 305; 313. 
Stamp Act. 283; 284; 285; 297. 
Stedman, Edmund Clarence, account 

of, 384-385; criticism of Celia Thax- 

ter, 390. 
Stockbridge, 281. 

Stockton, Frank Richard, 377; 381 ; 392. 
Stoddard, Richard Henry, 384. 
Stowe, Calvin E., 333. 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, account of, 

332-334; 337; 338. 
Stuart, Ruth McEnery, 380. 
Summer Shower, A , 340. 
Sumner, Charles, 336; 337; 338. 
Sunnyside, 302; illustration, 303. 

Tales of a Traveller. 302. 

Tanglewood Tales. 325. 

Tarkington, Booth, 380. 

Taylor, Bavard, account of, 382-384. 

Telling the Bees, 332. 

Tennessee, 377. 

Tennyson, Alfred, 367. 

"Tenth Muse, The," 275; 276. 

Thackeray, William Makepeace, criti- 
cism of Irving, 303. 

Thanatopsis, 308; 309; 313; 382. 

That Lass o' Lowries, 380. 

Thaxter, Cclia, 3S';; ?<;o. 

Thomas, Kdiih M . ,v>i. 

Thoreau, Hiiirv l)a\iii, account of, 
318-322; purlrait, 319; illustration, 
322; 327- 

Ticknor, George, 340; 352; 362. 

Timrod, Henry, 364; account of, 367- 
368; 374- 

To a Waterfowl, 308; 309. 

To Have and To Hold. 380. 

Torrey, Bradford, 396. 

Transcendentalism, "notes of," 314; 
influence of, 315; 327. 

Transcendentalists, account of, 314- 
328; 329; 360. 



Translations, Bryant's Uiad and Odys- 
sey, 309; Longfellow's, 341-342; 352; 
362; Norton's Divine Comedy, 397; 
Taylor's Faust, 384. 

Trowbridge, John Town.send, 378; 394. 

Trumbull, John, 292-293; 297. 

Twice-Told Talcs, 324. 

Ulalume, 371. 

Uncle Remus. 377. 

Uncle Tom's Cabin, 3i3-3iA\ 338. 

Union, 298; 329. 

United Netherlands, 357. 

United States, 292; 298; 333; 334; 352; 
354; 364; 378; History of the, Ban- 
croft's, 353-354; 362; Hildreth's, 
359- 

United States Naval Academy, 354. 

United States Navy, 305- History of 
the. Cooper's, 305. 

Unseen Spirits, 312. 

Vaughan, Henry, 359. 

Verse, early colonial, 274; 284. 

Vers libre, 392. 

Very, Jones, 390. 

Views Afoot, 382. 

Vision of Co'umbus, The, 294. 

Vision of Sir Launfal, The. 344; 345; 

350. 
Voices of the Nigh!, 341 ; 350. 

Walden, 321; 327. 

Walden Pond, 319. 

Wall Street, 383. 

Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 378. 

Ward, Nathaniel, 282; 284. 

Warner, Charles Dudley, 392. 

War of 1812, its effect upon the Repub- 

Hc, 298:352; 362. 
Washington, the city, 301; 347. 
Washington, George, 290; 297; Life 

and Writings of. The, Sparks's, 353; 

Life of, Irving's, 302. 
Webster, Daniel, account of, 336-337; 

338; criticism of Calhoun, 364. 
Webster, Noah, 361; 362. 
Week on the Concord and Merrimack 

Rivers. A. 321; 327. 
Wharton, Mrs. Edith, 381 
Whipple, Edwin Percy, 359; 382. 
White, Captain Joseph, 337. 
Whitman, Walt, account of, 387-390. 
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 279; com- 
pared with Woolman, 283; account 

of, 330-332; 337:338. 
Whittier, Mary, 330. 
Wide Awake, 399. 
Wieland, 296; 297. 



434 



INDEX 



Wigglesworth, Michael, account of, 

274-275; 283; 284. 
Wild Iloneyswkic, 295. 
William the Coiiqueror, 360. 
Williams C'.,lk-f;c, 307. 
Williams, Roger, 282; 284. 
Willis, Nathaniel Parker, account of, 

311-312; 313- 
Winsor, Justin, 395. 
Winthrop, John, 273; Mather's story 

of, 279-280; 283; 284. 



Wirt, William, 364; portrait, 36J 

374- 
Wonder-Book. The, 325. 
Wood notes. 51 8. 
Woolman, j<ihn, 283; 284. 
Worcester, 353. 
Wordsworth, William, 317. 

Yale College, 286; 293; 304. 
Yemassee, The, 364; 365; 374. 
Youth's Companion, The, 399. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

illl'JlJJillllll:|'ll|iillilll!il! 
022 052 609 4 



